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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is legendary radio programmer Lee Aprils, who

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Speaker 1: literally created the A O R format that's album oriented

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Speaker 1: rock for you young uns, and was not only the

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Speaker 1: chief programmer at XM Radio, created the channels there on lead, Great,

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Speaker 1: to have You, Great, to be here, Fantastic. Okay, So

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Speaker 1: what's the future of radio in today's world? Well, I

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Speaker 1: think it's, um, it's gonna be just a big pie

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Speaker 1: that's split up between satellites and streaming and whatever other

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Speaker 1: technology comes along. Excuse me. I think the problem with

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Speaker 1: the restrial radio is they're stuck uh in the nineteen eighties.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's just insane and to me, it's unlistenable.

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Speaker 1: And I think unless they go through some radical transformation

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Speaker 1: uh in their programming, um, they're gonna be a pretty

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Speaker 1: small part of the pie over time. Okay. So if

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Speaker 1: you were in charge, what would you change? Well, i'd, uh,

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Speaker 1: first of all, explore a whole variety of new formats.

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Speaker 1: Some of the formats that around the year today were

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Speaker 1: created decades ago and may have been valid then, but

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Speaker 1: really haven't aren't that valid now? You're seeing even some stations.

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Speaker 1: There's one in Chicago, and there's some other emerging stations

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Speaker 1: that aren't taking some risks and uh playing a wide

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Speaker 1: range of music within their format rather than the hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty tested songs and getting great results. And I

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Speaker 1: can see any album rock world, I mean getting back

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Speaker 1: to what it was all about in the first place, UH,

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Speaker 1: which was you know, expansive, taking the major artists and

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Speaker 1: opening them up like when was the last time you

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Speaker 1: heard low Spark of High Heeled Boys or Hurricane or

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Speaker 1: just so many travels going through a list uh from

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Speaker 1: the mid seventies just for fun, and I'd say about

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Speaker 1: a fifteenth of the songs that were on there that

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Speaker 1: were very popular get played today. And I think they

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Speaker 1: need to go into creative overdrive as far as what

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Speaker 1: happens between the records. With all of the competition that's

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Speaker 1: out there today, it's amazing that they're creatively on autopilot.

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Speaker 1: You still hear two for Tuesdays and block party weekends

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Speaker 1: and things that were Coolber October and fifty years ago. Awesome,

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Speaker 1: But I mean, come on, and even the names of

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Speaker 1: the channels, you know, Fresh, they sound like detergents. Um.

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Speaker 1: So I think it really when they started calling a

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Speaker 1: big variety, this is Is there any positive connotation to variety?

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Speaker 1: It's ridiculous. Yeah, there's I think an FCC law that

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Speaker 1: says you have to be when you launch the States,

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Speaker 1: you have to be the new and most variety from

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Speaker 1: the seventies, eighties and nineties or something goofy like that. Um,

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Speaker 1: but I think, um, unless you're making a lot of

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Speaker 1: money doing what you're doing, this station will need to

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Speaker 1: blow it up and UH bring some inventive people in

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Speaker 1: there and realize that it's uh in almost two thousand

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Speaker 1: twentiess not one anymore. And I think a lot of

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Speaker 1: them are relying on research that I think is uh

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Speaker 1: generally invalid. I recalled times that we UH in a

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Speaker 1: single market, did three research projects from different companies and

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Speaker 1: they were all completely different. So and if the research

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Speaker 1: was so accurate, we wouldn't be they wouldn't be in

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Speaker 1: the situation here and now, which just uh. They don't

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Speaker 1: have fans, they have users. When was the last time

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Speaker 1: you saw a bumper radio bumper sticker in a car? Well,

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Speaker 1: I just remember, you know, kalo s here be used

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Speaker 1: to be in the seventies and eighties, there'll be a

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Speaker 1: competition where in Los Angeles, of course, between the stations,

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Speaker 1: and they would give out bumper stickers and you would

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Speaker 1: know when the show was in town. Not only do

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Speaker 1: we don't have those bumper stickers, were not clued in.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't that. It's not longer the culture the way

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Speaker 1: it used to be. Know, and you listen to the stations,

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Speaker 1: there's no connection with the concert events. I saw you

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Speaker 1: know e l Oh recently a couple of weeks ago,

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Speaker 1: and uh no station presence, and nobody talked about it

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Speaker 1: on the air a couple of weeks in front. And

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Speaker 1: when a new record comes out, even by an established artist,

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Speaker 1: chances are, at least in the rock area, it doesn't

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Speaker 1: get played or it doesn't get highlighted. I mean, you know,

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Speaker 1: Springsteen sting Yes have come out with the new records

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Speaker 1: then maybe not be as magical as their original ones,

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Speaker 1: but I think you owe it to at least give

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Speaker 1: it a spin and talk about it and inform the

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Speaker 1: listeners about it. And that doesn't happen anymore. They've taken

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Speaker 1: their eye off the music ball, the creative ball, all

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Speaker 1: the balls. Let's start from the beginning. Sure, of course,

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Speaker 1: when there was only terrestrial radio. We were locked in.

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Speaker 1: Especially in smaller markets, there weren't that many opportunities. But today,

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Speaker 1: the younger generation lives in an on demand culture. I

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Speaker 1: always say people say, kids today have you know, a

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Speaker 1: short attention span. I don't leave that. They just have

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Speaker 1: an incredible ship detector. They click until they find something

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Speaker 1: they want and then they might stay on that forever

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Speaker 1: or click again. You know, every year somebody dies in

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Speaker 1: Asia from playing video games three days straight. So with

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Speaker 1: inherently advertising on terrestrial radio, will the younger generations, millennials

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Speaker 1: and gen Z who never grew up with good radio,

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Speaker 1: would they listen to this kind of radio? No? I

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Speaker 1: doubt it. I think, Uh, the smart broadcasters again, if

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Speaker 1: they're not doing really well, uh what they have should

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Speaker 1: focus forty plus where the natural audiences. I remember when

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Speaker 1: we first started XM, we're talking to people. A lot

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Speaker 1: of people said that, oh it's gonna be the kids

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Speaker 1: that are really into satellites and all that, And we

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Speaker 1: talked to younger people and the general responses, you know, hey,

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Speaker 1: radio sucks. What do I want? You know, a hundred

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Speaker 1: channels of what sucks? You know. I talked to somebody uh,

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Speaker 1: you know forty and up. And they were like, oh

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Speaker 1: my god, you mean a station that would bring back

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Speaker 1: the magic of any WFM that I grew up with,

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Speaker 1: or uh, you know WSM and Nashville if fair country

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Speaker 1: fan and I said yeah, and I said, oh my,

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Speaker 1: sign me up. Okay. So in today's radio market, there's

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Speaker 1: Top forty, which is basically pop and hip hop, mainly

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Speaker 1: hip hop, and there's certainly so R and B stations

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Speaker 1: which are basically hip hop hip hop, and there are

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Speaker 1: some adult contemporary stations. But the the alternative stations, the

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Speaker 1: rock stations, the NPR stations, what they play almost never

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Speaker 1: crosses over, right, I know. That's uh, that's an interesting observation.

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Speaker 1: It's it used to be where the those formats fed

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Speaker 1: Top forty exactly. And so is this the problem with

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Speaker 1: Top forty or is it problem with rock? No. I

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Speaker 1: think it's a problem with rock because they're not exposing

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Speaker 1: a lot of the new uh and interesting material that

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Speaker 1: could cross over. Um. Yeah, I think it's rocks problem

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Speaker 1: because I think a lot of these younger skewing stations,

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Speaker 1: if they these songs got played just like they did

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Speaker 1: in the old days, Uh, they'd see it in their

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Speaker 1: their research and their phones, and they'd probably added. But

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Speaker 1: so you're saying that if we played rock on top forty,

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Speaker 1: it would ViRGE in. It's just a matter of exposure. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and again selective the right songs, but absolutely um okay.

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Speaker 1: But many people will say rock is dead. Where is

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Speaker 1: what's your view point on that? Well, I think it's

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Speaker 1: on life support. Um. I think rock as rock as

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Speaker 1: a genre is very much alive, but it's all based

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Speaker 1: on the old stuff. The Lords. You go to an

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Speaker 1: Eagles concert and you know, there's a million people there, uh,

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Speaker 1: but they're really you know, reliving their path, which is fine.

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Speaker 1: And uh that's why I see all these you know,

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Speaker 1: great concert attendance for these bands, and not much in

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Speaker 1: the record sales department. So I think rock is alive

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Speaker 1: in a well, it's just there's not a lot of new, interesting,

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Speaker 1: experimental type stuff coming out. Now. You're a person who's

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Speaker 1: famously literally been involved with these bands like yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: So if you were going to give direction to young

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Speaker 1: rock acts today, what would you say, Well, it depends

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Speaker 1: on the band. In the case of yes, no, no, no no,

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about younger acts. Forget these legendary acts that's

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Speaker 1: a whole separate topic. But if it was someone you know,

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Speaker 1: where the players don't have a history, they're starting out,

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Speaker 1: whether they're you know, eighteen to thirty five, so to speak. Players. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't think you can understand the future until you

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Speaker 1: understand the past. So I would get them just immersed

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Speaker 1: in some of these classic records to where they really

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Speaker 1: learned the spirit and soul behind them, and uh in

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Speaker 1: the musicianship and the quality of the musicianship and the

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Speaker 1: production and the cleverness that a lot of these most

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Speaker 1: of these records had. Uh. So I would immerse them

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Speaker 1: in that and see what they come up with. And

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Speaker 1: then what records would you recommend? Oh my god, it's

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Speaker 1: quite a long list. Every think from the Dark Side

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Speaker 1: of the Moon. They s album that mentioned favorites. Um,

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Speaker 1: I would even go back to you know, Harvest, Neil

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Speaker 1: Young certainly, particularly the late Arab Beatles stuff, Um some Rush,

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Speaker 1: Um you can tell my my favorites, the Genesis, Crosby

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Speaker 1: Stills and Nash Okay. So what was so magical about

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Speaker 1: those acts? Well, I think um they had they balanced melody,

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Speaker 1: amazing melodies, just memorable melodies with incredible musicianship and fantastic production,

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Speaker 1: and the arrangements were just clever. You don't see the

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Speaker 1: clever arrangements anymore as much anymore, um and I think

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Speaker 1: they they're sort of experimental. Everybody was trying to outdo themselves.

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Speaker 1: I remember in the late sixties everybody was trying to

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Speaker 1: out use an arms race in in amplification and technology.

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Speaker 1: And one band would have the sized marshal and excellent

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Speaker 1: there one band would have as face shifters and and

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Speaker 1: so there was this desire to be new and different

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Speaker 1: and to push it. And I think you heard those

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Speaker 1: and all those records. They evolved. But when I asked

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Speaker 1: whether it was the time, the were just a year

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Speaker 1: a part in age. So we came of age. Let's

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Speaker 1: call it with the Beatles. Okay. Now, in the sixties,

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Speaker 1: radio was the tribal drum. If you want to know

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Speaker 1: what was going on, first was AM, then it was FM.

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Speaker 1: You wanted to know what's going you literally listen to

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Speaker 1: the radio station. But ultimately in the eighties moved more

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Speaker 1: to video and it certainly blew up backs into in

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Speaker 1: a way that made them worldwide uh uh superstars. But

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Speaker 1: was it a moment in time that can't be replicated.

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Speaker 1: I think it can. I think the whole culture and

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Speaker 1: that spirit will never be the same. It won't be

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Speaker 1: seven again. But I think we're in a similar politics

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Speaker 1: going cultural situation now that is makes it ripe for

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Speaker 1: for this. I mean, there's practically civil war on the streets,

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Speaker 1: you know, the uh. I'd like to say that information

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Speaker 1: is the new rock and roll. There's so much going on.

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Speaker 1: I've never heard it put that way expand that yes, okay,

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Speaker 1: back back in the day, um rock and rolls would

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Speaker 1: drove culture. It was just what everybody what what it

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Speaker 1: uh determined what people look like, you know, how they talked,

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Speaker 1: hey boss man, and how the you know, how they acted.

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Speaker 1: It was just the drumbeat of an era. And now

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Speaker 1: I think it's more information instead of the walkman or stereo.

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Speaker 1: We've got our devices, instead of the water cooler talking

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Speaker 1: about who's better Jeff Becker, Eric Clapton, there's discussion on

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Speaker 1: you know, Trump and is it gonna be Biden. Um,

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Speaker 1: there's uh um certain swagger that the artists had that

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Speaker 1: you don't see anymore. Now. It's the politicians and the

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Speaker 1: you know, they seem to have the swagger. So I

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Speaker 1: think it's just a um it's where what was driving culture?

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Speaker 1: You know, it was rock and roll and now it's

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Speaker 1: more information. Okay, let's not because I I used put

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Speaker 1: it in a slightly different way, and I wonder if

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Speaker 1: it's the same Rock drove of the culture. Certainly from

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four to the late seventies got a reinjection

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Speaker 1: as a result of MTV. Then starting around or so,

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Speaker 1: we had twenty years were tech drove the culture. You

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Speaker 1: were constantly people first had to get computers to play

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Speaker 1: on a O L. Then of course we have the web.

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Speaker 1: There was always a new app, there are all these things.

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Speaker 1: Now it's solidified. We have what are called the fang stocks.

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Speaker 1: They control everything, you know, Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google, uh

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Speaker 1: and certainly Microsoft to agreed. Now, So I was saying

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Speaker 1: that politics drive the culture. But is that too narrow? Yeah? Uh,

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Speaker 1: I think it's a big, huge part of it. But

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Speaker 1: I think, um, information as a whole, even even just

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Speaker 1: surfing the web and finding out things that and statistics

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Speaker 1: that people never even cared about years ago is another

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Speaker 1: component I could say. And I you know, I've I

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Speaker 1: lost many years to the web, and I'm still losing

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Speaker 1: because you get on there, it's just amazing stuff. It's

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Speaker 1: all there. It's incredible even to this day. Everything And

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Speaker 1: so I think that's a big part of it, just

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Speaker 1: the access to all this information. And uh, but let's

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Speaker 1: stay right there, because one thing I know is, starting

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Speaker 1: about five years ago, we had to internet cacophony. I

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Speaker 1: mean I was there very early on the web because

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Speaker 1: I had a free subscription to a O well when

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Speaker 1: you're paid by the minute with Warner Brothers Records now

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Speaker 1: called Warner Records. Interestingly, but as I say, we lived

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Speaker 1: through these things. Now it is almost impossible to reach people.

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Speaker 1: They're bombarded with messages. How would you reach people, whether

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Speaker 1: it be information, music or what. Yeah, I think, um,

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Speaker 1: the shock factor, it's got to be shockingly different. It's

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Speaker 1: sort of like family Guy is shockingly different. Um. I think, um,

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Speaker 1: even the Tool Record sort of shockingly different. I'm a

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Speaker 1: huge fan of the Tool Record. I love it more,

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Speaker 1: I listen more, just get into it. That's experimental. They're

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Speaker 1: pushing boundaries. Um. But you know, of course Howard isn't

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Speaker 1: the shock jock anymore, but still, you know, he has

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Speaker 1: a bit of a shock factor going. So I think, um,

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Speaker 1: in movies. You know, the shocking movies cut through, So

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Speaker 1: I think you have to be Is that why The

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Speaker 1: Joker is successful? Not that I've seen it, but just

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Speaker 1: reading about it, Yeah, I think so, it's just shockingly

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Speaker 1: I haven't seen you know, they say it's like taxi

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Speaker 1: driver on steroids. But going back, so we live in

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Speaker 1: an era where you kill somebody in the morning, it's

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Speaker 1: news to about four o'clock if you're lucky. So is

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Speaker 1: shock inherent in what you're doing? Or do you have

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Speaker 1: to plan it? Oh? No, I think you have to plan.

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Speaker 1: It has to be in in your DNA to be

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Speaker 1: you know, shocking. And that doesn't mean evil or anything.

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Speaker 1: It means just like, wow, the fun shocking. Okay, So

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Speaker 1: let's just assume you have something shocking in the first

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Speaker 1: decade of this century, people would find it. Today, you

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Speaker 1: can be great and people won't find you. That's true.

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Speaker 1: I think you just gotta go where your target is,

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Speaker 1: and it's on the Internet's on Facebook, just blanketed and uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's a marketing question. I think it's different

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Speaker 1: for every product. But I think you just gotta go

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Speaker 1: where your target audience is and uh, let him know

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Speaker 1: about it. And slap him over the head with it

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Speaker 1: and hope that the you know, buzz is enough to

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Speaker 1: cut through. Okay, wouldn't you say? And I granted it

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Speaker 1: was a smaller world in many ways, but in the

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Speaker 1: late sixties, certainly in the very early seventies, no marketing

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Speaker 1: was necessary. No, it was all self marketing. Uh, come

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Speaker 1: out with a great record, and uh it takes care

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Speaker 1: of itself. I mean there was some that, you know,

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Speaker 1: flipping between the cracks. I can't think of any offhand,

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Speaker 1: but generally, yeah, you come up with a record. That's

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Speaker 1: the power of rock and roll as a culture. People

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Speaker 1: were talking about it. And you hear that new band

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Speaker 1: called Spirit. Oh man, you know, really, I'm gonna go

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Speaker 1: buy that? And uh so there was a Well, since

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Speaker 1: you've been on the creative end, this may be a

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Speaker 1: little bit out of your purview, but if you were

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Speaker 1: advising an act today, do they need an album? Do

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Speaker 1: they want an album as opposed to singles or singles

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Speaker 1: on a regular basis? You know, I think they do?

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Speaker 1: And um to really explore and to uh, I mean

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Speaker 1: we're talking about not somebody's after the quick, quick hit,

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Speaker 1: but the band that wants to establish themselves. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: think absolutely, Uh creates something that's a statement and you

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Speaker 1: know the thing that will flow from that. But then

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Speaker 1: you've got to get out of this mind set of

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Speaker 1: you know, three minute disposable songs based on fashion and

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Speaker 1: look and uh, what's what's hot? This what this week's

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Speaker 1: flavor is and get back to where artists are making

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Speaker 1: real statements. Uh. And again that's one of the things

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Speaker 1: I like about Tool. You listen to the whole thing,

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Speaker 1: it's it's really a statement, right. But you know the

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Speaker 1: other thing is talking about young pop and hip hop acts.

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Speaker 1: First thing they'll say, is there a brand and the

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Speaker 1: music that not only will they play privates will have

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Speaker 1: a perfume line, a clothing line. Is that a good

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Speaker 1: thing or a bad thing? Um? No, I think it's

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Speaker 1: just reality. Uh. I think personally, Uh, great artists don't

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Speaker 1: need that. You know, they can rely on the music

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Speaker 1: and what that does to people. But they might say

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Speaker 1: they can only make a limited amount of money. Yeah. True, Um,

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Speaker 1: but I think the the headphones lines and the cologn

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Speaker 1: and it's just part of the there's a distraction. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So just being very specific back in the air, we're

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Speaker 1: talking about sixties nearly seventies. Literally the acts were God

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Speaker 1: and what they said frequently in print and Rolling Stone

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Speaker 1: we really paid attention to. So does all this, you know,

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Speaker 1: what's in the number, all the you know extras other

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Speaker 1: than the music, Does that hurt credibility? I think so? Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Here it's musical credibility. It's probably uh has its commercial

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Speaker 1: upsides and uh can help the bottom line for the brand,

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Speaker 1: but musically it does nothing. And uh, okay, So let's

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Speaker 1: go back here we're talking about radio formats. Do you

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Speaker 1: believe if Top forty radio broadened its playlist it would

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Speaker 1: become more popular? Uh, that would have more listeners? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think it would. Um, but I think again, it's

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Speaker 1: not their fault that nobody's feeding him. What do you

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Speaker 1: mean nobody's feeding well, you know, the rock stations aren't

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Speaker 1: giving him great songs to play, and and the country

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Speaker 1: stations a little bit, but mainly the rock and alternative

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Speaker 1: stations aren't, you know, creating the hits that it would

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Speaker 1: appeal to a mass appeal station like a Top forty. Okay,

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Speaker 1: let's go to streaming. Now. All these streaming sites Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Deezer, Title,

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Speaker 1: they're inundated with playlists. If you were chief programming director

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Speaker 1: at one of these streaming services, what would you do?

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Speaker 1: Um Well, it's funny because I did a whole thing

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Speaker 1: on that. First of all, I get into news and

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Speaker 1: information to um, well, it would be very specific because

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Speaker 1: of course Spotify is a standalone company. Stock has been

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Speaker 1: up and now it's down, and they went into podcasts,

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Speaker 1: So if they went into information, what would it look like?

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Speaker 1: It would be, um, a wide range of different information

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Speaker 1: information genres from international to local, to food to so

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Speaker 1: a whole bunch of different choices, but all uh, talk

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Speaker 1: driven and um so you're talking about essentially radio stations. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: information on all those topics. Just to be clear, because

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Speaker 1: on Apple they have Beats one Radio Zane Low and

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Speaker 1: they have other famous DJs. Uh, that is not something

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Speaker 1: I listened to because that's not how I listen to

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Speaker 1: radio anymore. I like. I mean, you know, satellite, you

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Speaker 1: have a hundred odds stations. You have so many options

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Speaker 1: on the streaming service. You can go what you want

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Speaker 1: if you're going to have these stations. Because one thing

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Speaker 1: about talk talk is in the moment. It's not something

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Speaker 1: that can be pre programmed. Etcetera. Do you believe people

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Speaker 1: would listen to those stations if they were purely information

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Speaker 1: no music, Yes, I do, and it might be an

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Speaker 1: older audience. And uh, but I think that's part of

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Speaker 1: the completeness they need. And i'd also i'd have radio

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Speaker 1: channels on there, you know, for people who don't just

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Speaker 1: want to vege and listen to a great um aggregator. Well,

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Speaker 1: then let's go to Spotify specifically, No tune in has

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Speaker 1: varying radio channels, but a lot of these good, right, Okay, Uh,

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Speaker 1: but that's that was gonna be my question if you

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Speaker 1: go on all of these. Uh, certainly Spotify the Big

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Speaker 1: Cahuna has a Pandora like feature where you put in

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Speaker 1: a track and it will generate a station for you.

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Speaker 1: What is that good batter? Otherwise? Oh, I think it's

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Speaker 1: just part of it, you know, part of the mix.

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Speaker 1: That's that's probably good. But I'm thinking great, uh radio

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Speaker 1: stations that are against super targeted and have amazing production,

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Speaker 1: theater of the mind and just take people places. Let's go.

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Speaker 1: John Marks was on x M. He's a country programmer

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Speaker 1: and now he went to Spotify a couple of years back,

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Speaker 1: and one could say he's got the best choices in

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Speaker 1: country music. And you can go through a couple of

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Speaker 1: his play Let's say this is what he's listening to.

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Speaker 1: Are you saying that if he went back to being

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Speaker 1: a DJ, that would be a great edition. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: might not be the same format. It might be more

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Speaker 1: production heavy where there's magic between the songs. Uh, in

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Speaker 1: form of you know, interstitials and uh yeah, and he

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Speaker 1: talked and uh uh present a passionate viewpoint of why

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Speaker 1: he picked the music. Okay, so why do production and interstitials,

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Speaker 1: etcetera hook the listener? Uh? Theater of the mind. It's

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Speaker 1: just magic if done right, which it isn't lately, but

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Speaker 1: uh in the golden days, and I think it's still valid.

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Speaker 1: It just transports you. It takes something from you utility

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Speaker 1: to to magic. And I'm not talking about promos you know,

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Speaker 1: listen now and win um, but just really beautiful little

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Speaker 1: segways that are in full stereo and are just cinematic

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Speaker 1: and elevate the whole experience to uh to a higher level.

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Speaker 1: Do you think that you know, if let's say one

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Speaker 1: of these outlets was going to do this, how many

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Speaker 1: music stations would they need? I would say, Um, you know,

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Speaker 1: ideally probably about a hundred. Okay, So like satellite radio, okay,

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Speaker 1: after but that you know, satellite radio, which people pay for, uh,

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Speaker 1: is very labor intensive. So if a streaming service was

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Speaker 1: to hire these people cost a lot of money. Well, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, but when I was at U at XM,

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Speaker 1: some of the better channels had one person. Remember our

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Speaker 1: Top Tracks channel had one one guy. Our sixties channel

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Speaker 1: two DJs and one of them was a program director.

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Speaker 1: And I remember it was a channel of fine tuning,

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Speaker 1: which was pretty adventurous that had just one guy. So

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Speaker 1: I think it's if you rethink it, it's doable. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So let's just we have these streaming service. Let's say

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Speaker 1: we have these information channels, we have these music channels.

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Speaker 1: What's your view on playlists which these outlets are inundated with.

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Speaker 1: I think they're valuable. Um uh, just again another component

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Speaker 1: of what these find it overwhelming. You know the Spotify

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Speaker 1: Top fifty which is basically hip hop and pop. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: listen to that. You listen to the electronicals? How many

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Speaker 1: tracks can you listen to? You? Right? That's why I

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Speaker 1: like the radio station thing it uh, you know, you

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Speaker 1: get the very focused channels and really just you know,

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Speaker 1: if you want progressive rocky, go to that progressive rock

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Speaker 1: channel and you get you know, magic between the songs.

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Speaker 1: Somebody really intelligent talking about it. U uh. You can

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Speaker 1: even have you know, live broadcasts, recorded broadcasts of concerts,

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Speaker 1: and it's instead of spending so much time with playlists,

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Speaker 1: you can just go to the source and it could

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Speaker 1: be expertly programmed. And okay, let's go back to the source.

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Speaker 1: Speaking for you, where were you born Chicago? And what'd

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Speaker 1: your father do for a living? It was an obstetrician, okay.

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Speaker 1: And did your mother work outside the home? Your father

423
00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:30,400
Speaker 1: delivered babies too. You're the older, the younger, I'm the younger.

424
00:25:30,440 --> 00:25:32,600
Speaker 1: You're the younger. What's the how much older? The older?

425
00:25:32,920 --> 00:25:35,280
Speaker 1: Five years? So what's he up to? He is a

426
00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:41,040
Speaker 1: industrial designer out in Connecticut. Really, so your father, if

427
00:25:41,040 --> 00:25:43,240
Speaker 1: you're an obstetrician, you might get a call any day,

428
00:25:43,280 --> 00:25:45,520
Speaker 1: any time and they have to run out. Yes, three

429
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:48,880
Speaker 1: in the morning was not unusual. Okay. So was your

430
00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:52,399
Speaker 1: father a big presence in your life? Yeah, he was.

431
00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:57,760
Speaker 1: I was always into radio and music going way back,

432
00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:03,600
Speaker 1: and he is from the uh, the generation where music

433
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:08,800
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's not a good good business. Uh.

434
00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 1: And radio, well, nobody listens to radio anymore ever since

435
00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:16,560
Speaker 1: Jack Benny went to television. So it wasn't particularly supportive,

436
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:20,160
Speaker 1: but it was about your mother, very supportive. She used

437
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 1: to take me down when I was six seven eight

438
00:26:23,200 --> 00:26:27,080
Speaker 1: years old down the radio stations downtown to watch the DJs.

439
00:26:27,119 --> 00:26:30,000
Speaker 1: Really now, could you would they let you in or

440
00:26:30,119 --> 00:26:34,120
Speaker 1: just since you were so young? And okay, so when

441
00:26:34,119 --> 00:26:37,720
Speaker 1: did you start listening to radio? It was, well, it

442
00:26:37,800 --> 00:26:39,879
Speaker 1: was always on in the house, but I really started

443
00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:42,240
Speaker 1: What kind of radio was on in the house? Uh?

444
00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:45,520
Speaker 1: Beautiful music? Okay, because one thing I certainly remember my

445
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:47,960
Speaker 1: father was into beautiful music in the car. But they

446
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:50,640
Speaker 1: used to play a lot of show tunes. Show tones

447
00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:54,560
Speaker 1: is big too. But I remember it was December. Line

448
00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:59,119
Speaker 1: was my first. It was w LS What happened on

449
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:02,240
Speaker 1: December eleventh, inteen sixty two. That's when I first really

450
00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:04,600
Speaker 1: got into radio. Okay, let's slow down a little bit.

451
00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:08,679
Speaker 1: In that early part of the sixties, most people had transistors.

452
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:11,920
Speaker 1: Did you have a transistor radio at that point in time?

453
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:14,920
Speaker 1: We got this for Christmas and my parents didn't want it,

454
00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:17,600
Speaker 1: and they put it in my room, and that's so cool.

455
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:20,480
Speaker 1: And so what did they put in your room? The radio?

456
00:27:21,359 --> 00:27:23,800
Speaker 1: What kind of radio was it? It was an admiral

457
00:27:24,359 --> 00:27:27,080
Speaker 1: so it was like one speaker, how big one speaker

458
00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:31,359
Speaker 1: and size of a shoebox? And what how old were

459
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:33,200
Speaker 1: you when they put that in your room? That was ted.

460
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:36,119
Speaker 1: I was always into into radio and music. We had

461
00:27:36,119 --> 00:27:38,040
Speaker 1: a juke box at our house. But we had a

462
00:27:38,119 --> 00:27:40,639
Speaker 1: juke box at your house. Well, my uncle, who I

463
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:44,880
Speaker 1: never really knew that well, owned cash Box. Cash Box,

464
00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:47,960
Speaker 1: the legendary trade magazine. Now on a business it was

465
00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:50,680
Speaker 1: cash book, cash Box and Billboard. And then along came

466
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:54,080
Speaker 1: record World. But he owned a cash Boody owned cash

467
00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:57,119
Speaker 1: Box and uh did he own it when it went down? No,

468
00:27:57,359 --> 00:28:00,840
Speaker 1: he owned it. I think the mob blotted from Uh

469
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:02,920
Speaker 1: he owned it in the fifties. And did he do

470
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:05,960
Speaker 1: well selling it? I think so because he lived in

471
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:09,399
Speaker 1: a fancy high rise in downtown Chicago. Okay. And this

472
00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:14,239
Speaker 1: was what your father's brother, your mother's brother, mother's uh

473
00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:20,800
Speaker 1: sisters brother okay, me and your her husband right. So yes,

474
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 1: at that time, people don't forget, you know, cash box

475
00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:26,440
Speaker 1: literally was the bible not only of records, but have

476
00:28:26,600 --> 00:28:31,840
Speaker 1: jukeboxes and other vending things. Okay, So he gave us

477
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:34,440
Speaker 1: a jukebox which he had, and I used to send

478
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 1: over records and I remember listening to the records that

479
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:42,560
Speaker 1: came in. He just would send a care package, and

480
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:44,719
Speaker 1: so I was listening to records. And this was before

481
00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 1: you had your radio, and you personally would change the

482
00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:50,680
Speaker 1: records in the jukebox. Yeah, how did you do that?

483
00:28:51,280 --> 00:28:53,840
Speaker 1: Just it was unlocked and it didn't take the coin

484
00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:56,280
Speaker 1: box was disconnected. I just opened it up and put

485
00:28:56,360 --> 00:29:00,520
Speaker 1: the records in there. I remember the first record, uh

486
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:04,840
Speaker 1: six we had sixteen tons We had in the Middle

487
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:07,240
Speaker 1: of an Island by Tony Bennett, which I really liked.

488
00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:11,960
Speaker 1: And just all these sixties and how much we do

489
00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:15,080
Speaker 1: listen to the jokebox a lot. I'd go down there

490
00:29:15,120 --> 00:29:17,920
Speaker 1: and just listen to right. Yeah, we had a pinball

491
00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 1: machine from like nineteen o nine. We used to be

492
00:29:20,360 --> 00:29:22,400
Speaker 1: down there. He gave us one of those two. But

493
00:29:23,280 --> 00:29:25,720
Speaker 1: remember what the what what was the theme of that?

494
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:28,560
Speaker 1: It was a beach theme with all these sort of

495
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:31,960
Speaker 1: bikini girls on it, and it was a Gottlieb and

496
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:36,240
Speaker 1: that's all I remember. I remember. We had Lady Luck. Okay,

497
00:29:36,400 --> 00:29:38,600
Speaker 1: and it was a Gottlie ball. So so you get

498
00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:42,160
Speaker 1: this radio, it's in your room. What happens on December eleven?

499
00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:45,920
Speaker 1: In December eleventh, I'm tuning around and I hit w LS,

500
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:50,640
Speaker 1: which of course is a clear channel station in Chicago. Yes, powerful,

501
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:52,520
Speaker 1: and it's once again, what's where do you live in

502
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 1: Chicago at the time. We live a place called Flosphore,

503
00:29:54,960 --> 00:29:59,720
Speaker 1: which was about twenty miles south of year But didn't okay,

504
00:29:59,840 --> 00:30:03,920
Speaker 1: I remember being in Chicago usually the wealthier suburbs or north, Yes,

505
00:30:04,400 --> 00:30:06,520
Speaker 1: So why did you live in the south? This was

506
00:30:06,640 --> 00:30:09,680
Speaker 1: kind of inro It's pretty wealthy at the time, and

507
00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:13,400
Speaker 1: it was just surrounded by non wealth I don't know

508
00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:15,640
Speaker 1: how it happened. Oh, I know how it happened. It

509
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:22,440
Speaker 1: was the place where Illinois Central Railroads executives lived because

510
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:25,400
Speaker 1: there were all these golf courses around, and it grew

511
00:30:25,520 --> 00:30:28,960
Speaker 1: from that into this, uh sort of little executive retreat

512
00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:32,480
Speaker 1: is known for its at five golf courses. And again

513
00:30:32,520 --> 00:30:35,400
Speaker 1: it was surrounded by rough neighborhoods, but it was this

514
00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 1: little oasis. And do your father play golf? Yeah he did.

515
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:43,960
Speaker 1: Did you tried it and got piste off at it? Okay?

516
00:30:44,280 --> 00:30:47,000
Speaker 1: So and you're in school now you're dedicated to music.

517
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:50,680
Speaker 1: Are you a kid who has friends? Yeah, lots of friends.

518
00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:55,600
Speaker 1: You're a popular kid. I was always kind of, you know,

519
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:59,600
Speaker 1: a little eccentric, but uh, and I think people like

520
00:30:59,760 --> 00:31:02,960
Speaker 1: that about me. And then just going forward in high school,

521
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:07,160
Speaker 1: good student, bad student. I was so immersed in music

522
00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 1: and radio. I was a terrible student. We ditch and

523
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:14,080
Speaker 1: go downtown and buy records and again go to w

524
00:31:14,280 --> 00:31:18,080
Speaker 1: l s and w CFL had um windows where you

525
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:19,920
Speaker 1: could watch the DJs. We go down and do that.

526
00:31:20,680 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 1: And uh, I made appointments with all the gm s

527
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:25,560
Speaker 1: and pds and met them back when I was in

528
00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:29,160
Speaker 1: high school, and usually that what would happen during school days?

529
00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:33,720
Speaker 1: And what was your pitch? What was your agenda? Ideas?

530
00:31:33,960 --> 00:31:36,880
Speaker 1: I got some ideas. Okay, you wanted to pitch um ideas? Yeah,

531
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:41,040
Speaker 1: and I wasn't thinking money or anything, but yeah, it's

532
00:31:41,080 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 1: far as to talk to and meet him. And uh,

533
00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:44,560
Speaker 1: well let's go back. You got the radio room. What

534
00:31:44,600 --> 00:31:48,640
Speaker 1: happens on December level? Okamber ten um, turn it on

535
00:31:48,920 --> 00:31:53,120
Speaker 1: w LS and it's like nothing I ever heard in

536
00:31:53,200 --> 00:31:56,320
Speaker 1: my life. It was magical and it's funny. I remember

537
00:31:56,320 --> 00:31:59,640
Speaker 1: when the Jingles would come on, I actually thought that

538
00:31:59,840 --> 00:32:02,120
Speaker 1: the were singers live in the studio, and how do

539
00:32:02,200 --> 00:32:04,960
Speaker 1: they get it right every time? And that's where I

540
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:07,760
Speaker 1: really got into theater of the mind, the production and

541
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:12,360
Speaker 1: the personality and guys like Dick BEYONDI back then, and

542
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:14,720
Speaker 1: it was I get chills thinking about it. It was

543
00:32:14,800 --> 00:32:19,120
Speaker 1: just magic. And that's when I just became completely addicted.

544
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:21,880
Speaker 1: And I remember we were talking earlier. My dad would

545
00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:24,760
Speaker 1: get up at three in the morning to deliver babies. Um,

546
00:32:25,120 --> 00:32:26,840
Speaker 1: that would be my signal to check out the all

547
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:30,200
Speaker 1: night show called The East of Midnight with Clark Webber

548
00:32:31,040 --> 00:32:33,840
Speaker 1: and UM, so you know, listen to all night radio.

549
00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:37,320
Speaker 1: And then eventually I discovered, just to be clear, you

550
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:40,720
Speaker 1: never listened to w LS before that? Okay, No, I was,

551
00:32:40,920 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 1: uh and they had only go into rock two years earlier.

552
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 1: Were you a guy who listened to the baseball on

553
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:55,560
Speaker 1: the radio before w CFL. I was a big White

554
00:32:55,600 --> 00:33:01,600
Speaker 1: Sox fan, and uh also radios to explain it, because

555
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:05,040
Speaker 1: the Cubs were terrible? What made somebody a White Sox

556
00:33:05,120 --> 00:33:08,719
Speaker 1: fan as opposed to a Cubs fan? Uh? Background, it's

557
00:33:08,800 --> 00:33:11,640
Speaker 1: usually a family thing. You know, your parents were into

558
00:33:11,640 --> 00:33:15,600
Speaker 1: the White Sox. The Cubs were awful, run by Wrigley

559
00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:18,280
Speaker 1: who was a Nazi, and it was terrible, and you know,

560
00:33:18,440 --> 00:33:21,520
Speaker 1: don't I could never support the Cubs. There's a reason

561
00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:25,040
Speaker 1: they lose every year. And uh and it took me

562
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:27,080
Speaker 1: to White Sox games early, and you know, kind of

563
00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:29,600
Speaker 1: got into the whole vibe of COMMISSI. Okay, so now

564
00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:33,320
Speaker 1: you're listening to w LS. You know, you have this

565
00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:36,520
Speaker 1: amazing moment. At that time, were there any other top

566
00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:40,160
Speaker 1: forty stations in Chicago? There was one with a very

567
00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:43,480
Speaker 1: bad signal at ninety called w y n R for

568
00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:47,440
Speaker 1: just for a minute, but their signals so bad I

569
00:33:47,480 --> 00:33:50,959
Speaker 1: could barely hear it in my house and they lasted

570
00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:54,080
Speaker 1: about a year or so. And before that, in the

571
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:56,200
Speaker 1: late fifties, there was w j j D and w

572
00:33:56,400 --> 00:33:59,720
Speaker 1: I n D playing popular music. But LS was the

573
00:33:59,760 --> 00:34:02,960
Speaker 1: first real, full blown balls to the wall top four. Okay,

574
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:05,680
Speaker 1: so now you're addicted. What happens? Well then I started,

575
00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:11,160
Speaker 1: uh really about the same year, dialing around to see

576
00:34:11,200 --> 00:34:13,440
Speaker 1: if there were other tough forty stations. That's where I

577
00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:18,880
Speaker 1: discovered stations like w ABC, Yeah, another clear channel stations,

578
00:34:19,960 --> 00:34:22,759
Speaker 1: and uh so I became a d xer, meaning and

579
00:34:23,520 --> 00:34:27,719
Speaker 1: you know, listen around the dial and find stations from

580
00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:31,080
Speaker 1: kf I in Los Angeles came in back then, and

581
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:33,440
Speaker 1: I was enamored by even though they weren't top forty,

582
00:34:33,560 --> 00:34:38,560
Speaker 1: just finding other stations around the country. Yeah, I think

583
00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:40,160
Speaker 1: I don't know what it stands for, but it means

584
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:45,239
Speaker 1: a radio listener, sort of like um of of distant stations. Okay,

585
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:47,080
Speaker 1: so you said that you would go downtown in high

586
00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:49,520
Speaker 1: school with your friends, so you had other friends. Was

587
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 1: anybody is into it at least half as much as you? Music?

588
00:34:53,719 --> 00:34:55,719
Speaker 1: They were in two It's a matter of fact. In

589
00:34:55,880 --> 00:35:00,239
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five, I managed rock bands around Chica Ago

590
00:35:01,320 --> 00:35:04,200
Speaker 1: and um, I was Irving as Off, still working in

591
00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:06,759
Speaker 1: Chicago at that point. No, he wasn't. He wasn't there yet.

592
00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:11,320
Speaker 1: This is uh and uh. And these were again not

593
00:35:11,640 --> 00:35:13,920
Speaker 1: not the Buckinghams or anything like that. They were just small,

594
00:35:14,400 --> 00:35:16,840
Speaker 1: you know, playing the bar mitzs and sock ops. And

595
00:35:16,920 --> 00:35:19,080
Speaker 1: it's funny, that's really the roots of the A O

596
00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:21,719
Speaker 1: r idea because what we used to do is me

597
00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:25,759
Speaker 1: and my friends we'd say, um, you know, these bands

598
00:35:25,800 --> 00:35:27,919
Speaker 1: played little at in Loopy lou midnight hour and Louis

599
00:35:27,960 --> 00:35:29,920
Speaker 1: Louis over and over again. Is that what people want

600
00:35:29,960 --> 00:35:33,640
Speaker 1: to hear? So we'd hand out these questionnaires, what would

601
00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:37,000
Speaker 1: you like to see the band played next week's sock op?

602
00:35:37,800 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 1: And an amazing thing happened and that was the top forty.

603
00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:44,280
Speaker 1: Audience started to fragment. We noticed a lot of guys,

604
00:35:44,440 --> 00:35:47,520
Speaker 1: mainly between about fifteen and eighteen, saying, don't play that

605
00:35:47,680 --> 00:35:50,680
Speaker 1: w R Ship. We want to hear the Yardbirds and

606
00:35:50,800 --> 00:35:54,400
Speaker 1: the Birds and the Beatles and the Stones. So Dan

607
00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:58,880
Speaker 1: started playing that and became pretty popular. But that movement

608
00:35:59,080 --> 00:36:01,920
Speaker 1: really grew in sixty six. And so if you knew

609
00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:06,200
Speaker 1: Hendricks were, you were in the or cream, you're kind

610
00:36:06,239 --> 00:36:08,120
Speaker 1: of in the know. If you know who Graham Bond

611
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:11,600
Speaker 1: organization was, you're really in the know. Then sixty seven came,

612
00:36:12,680 --> 00:36:15,879
Speaker 1: this movement got bigger and bigger, and sixty nine all

613
00:36:15,960 --> 00:36:17,800
Speaker 1: hell broke loose and that's when I started working in

614
00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 1: Earnest on the on the format. But as far as friends,

615
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:25,759
Speaker 1: they were in the bands or just people who you know,

616
00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:28,400
Speaker 1: we're just okay, are you the entrepreneurial sort? I mean

617
00:36:28,480 --> 00:36:33,279
Speaker 1: being a manager. A successful manager has a certain personality. Yeah,

618
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:35,480
Speaker 1: I don't think I could do it. I don't think

619
00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:38,479
Speaker 1: I'm mean enough to do it on a professional level.

620
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:41,839
Speaker 1: But back then, as far as guiding the bands and booking, uh,

621
00:36:42,480 --> 00:36:47,879
Speaker 1: you know, the local venues and just general guidance something.

622
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:50,120
Speaker 1: So did you make any money doing it? Yeah? What

623
00:36:50,239 --> 00:36:52,520
Speaker 1: about that? When you told the bands to police specific music?

624
00:36:52,560 --> 00:36:54,400
Speaker 1: Would they listen to you? Oh? God, they were into it.

625
00:36:54,640 --> 00:37:00,280
Speaker 1: They were like, yeah, okay, how many bands did you three? Okay? Managed? Okay?

626
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:03,080
Speaker 1: So but other than management in high school, you're not

627
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:08,840
Speaker 1: working in radio? Actually, I Um, I worked at a

628
00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 1: station in Miami when we'd go there on vacation, station

629
00:37:12,239 --> 00:37:16,080
Speaker 1: that I just loved in like sixty six w q

630
00:37:16,239 --> 00:37:20,279
Speaker 1: A M, which was a fantastic radio station. And uh,

631
00:37:20,360 --> 00:37:21,920
Speaker 1: I actually wrote to them and said, well, you know,

632
00:37:21,960 --> 00:37:26,160
Speaker 1: we'd go down to Eastern Christmas and I'd say can

633
00:37:26,200 --> 00:37:28,880
Speaker 1: I come by? And uh, you know, I love your

634
00:37:28,920 --> 00:37:34,239
Speaker 1: station and programmers insured So I I went went by

635
00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:36,640
Speaker 1: there one time, had a meeting with him, give game

636
00:37:36,680 --> 00:37:40,160
Speaker 1: a lot of ideas and feedback, and um, they hired

637
00:37:40,200 --> 00:37:43,800
Speaker 1: me for whenever I was on vacation. They paid me

638
00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:47,320
Speaker 1: with the news tip of the week money, which is

639
00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:51,680
Speaker 1: five dollars and sixty cents unless somebody set a fire

640
00:37:51,760 --> 00:37:55,000
Speaker 1: and reported that I wouldn't get paid. But yeah, I

641
00:37:55,400 --> 00:37:59,239
Speaker 1: filed records, got them. Okay, So were you more of

642
00:37:59,320 --> 00:38:03,439
Speaker 1: a music anim more of a radio fan? Really both? Um?

643
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:08,200
Speaker 1: You know I have to say fifty okay, okay, so

644
00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:11,040
Speaker 1: graduate from high school. Your parents want you to go

645
00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:18,200
Speaker 1: to college. Um, but I didn't. I did that go down? Well?

646
00:38:18,800 --> 00:38:22,279
Speaker 1: I and about sixty nine, I created this format and

647
00:38:22,480 --> 00:38:24,560
Speaker 1: sent it to everybody, all the group heads and all that,

648
00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:28,960
Speaker 1: and one guy called me back, these are all radio

649
00:38:29,040 --> 00:38:31,920
Speaker 1: group heads. Yeah, actually ninety. When I got out of

650
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:34,680
Speaker 1: high school barely, I went to Miami and had a

651
00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:36,480
Speaker 1: job at w q A M, which was where I worked.

652
00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:43,080
Speaker 1: That was seventy and uh. Then when I was working

653
00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:44,839
Speaker 1: at q AM, I I told him I was really

654
00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:47,520
Speaker 1: an FM. Just just just not for one second. You're

655
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:50,960
Speaker 1: a teenager coming into these uh and talking to these

656
00:38:51,480 --> 00:38:54,640
Speaker 1: radio station execs and giving them your ideas. What is

657
00:38:54,680 --> 00:39:00,279
Speaker 1: their reaction? You know? It's interesting? Uh they were Okay,

658
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:02,799
Speaker 1: it was a combination of this guy knows what he's

659
00:39:02,800 --> 00:39:04,360
Speaker 1: talking about because I got all the N A B.

660
00:39:04,719 --> 00:39:08,600
Speaker 1: Billboard conventions, but he sure looks like an actually a teenager,

661
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:11,520
Speaker 1: so I think it's might be worth listening to because

662
00:39:11,719 --> 00:39:14,080
Speaker 1: they get you know, hippies coming in and say, dude,

663
00:39:14,120 --> 00:39:17,400
Speaker 1: play more mothers and I was no, no, here's the

664
00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:19,600
Speaker 1: direction you need to go. Here at the demographics, stalk

665
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:22,680
Speaker 1: the language, and I think they were pretty impressed. Okay.

666
00:39:22,719 --> 00:39:24,480
Speaker 1: So in high school you would go to the billboard

667
00:39:24,520 --> 00:39:27,560
Speaker 1: conferences on Billboard and uh N A b s and

668
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:31,040
Speaker 1: where were those located? Billboard was usually in New York

669
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:33,240
Speaker 1: and the N A b s were usually in Chicago.

670
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:34,880
Speaker 1: And your parents just gave you the money or you

671
00:39:34,960 --> 00:39:36,920
Speaker 1: have the money and just went you the money and

672
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:40,160
Speaker 1: use my youth card, and uh went to the conventions

673
00:39:40,239 --> 00:39:44,920
Speaker 1: and it was again it was like really cool. Was

674
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:49,920
Speaker 1: there anybody else your age? No other college students, but

675
00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:53,000
Speaker 1: nobody quite as young. Okay. So now you graduate from

676
00:39:53,080 --> 00:39:55,120
Speaker 1: high school, you're working at w q A M. Yes,

677
00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:57,960
Speaker 1: and uh, they knew I was into FM. So I

678
00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:01,480
Speaker 1: was sending out these proposals to all these people group heads,

679
00:40:02,080 --> 00:40:04,520
Speaker 1: and most of them wrote very nice letters back, and

680
00:40:05,080 --> 00:40:07,279
Speaker 1: it was fine. One guy, Buzz Bennetty you may have

681
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:11,000
Speaker 1: heard of, call and said, hey, dude, I got your proposal.

682
00:40:11,560 --> 00:40:14,600
Speaker 1: We're starting a station in Miami. You know, they just

683
00:40:14,680 --> 00:40:18,080
Speaker 1: bought the Bartel FM stations and he said it's Top

684
00:40:18,200 --> 00:40:23,080
Speaker 1: forty and said, that's okay, it's FM, and so I

685
00:40:23,160 --> 00:40:25,680
Speaker 1: gotta meet higher there and we're just a little bit slower.

686
00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:29,400
Speaker 1: You're interested in FM because oh, the fidelity and you

687
00:40:29,440 --> 00:40:31,840
Speaker 1: can see the future was there and okay, but it

688
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:34,479
Speaker 1: was the sound as well as the different programming because

689
00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:36,719
Speaker 1: what year was at sixty seven when the government said

690
00:40:36,760 --> 00:40:38,960
Speaker 1: you have to have different programming on AM and fight

691
00:40:39,360 --> 00:40:42,920
Speaker 1: because a lot of companies held both. Okay, and at

692
00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:45,720
Speaker 1: this point in time, with these you're literally pitching a format.

693
00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:48,680
Speaker 1: That's the first thing you're doing, yes, and the format

694
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:52,719
Speaker 1: is what ended up being a O R okay. So okay.

695
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:56,000
Speaker 1: So you take the station in Miami, the Top forty

696
00:40:56,040 --> 00:40:59,359
Speaker 1: and play lots of Partridge Family records and uh, it's

697
00:40:59,360 --> 00:41:03,120
Speaker 1: funny because entire staff were stoners. I mean, we're just gout.

698
00:41:03,440 --> 00:41:08,160
Speaker 1: We all, um, there's a new station. Um. And the

699
00:41:08,400 --> 00:41:11,239
Speaker 1: entire staff came from different parts of the country and

700
00:41:11,360 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 1: we all met one day and said, you know, instead

701
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:16,320
Speaker 1: of getting shitty apartments, why don't we all get a

702
00:41:16,480 --> 00:41:19,279
Speaker 1: mansion like in Coconut Grove and pitch in and we'll

703
00:41:19,280 --> 00:41:21,480
Speaker 1: all live there. So we did. It was a que house.

704
00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:26,000
Speaker 1: It was in Coconut Grove and it was ground zero

705
00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:29,839
Speaker 1: for getting high. All the record guys would come over

706
00:41:29,960 --> 00:41:33,600
Speaker 1: every night and it was it was amazing. And uh

707
00:41:33,760 --> 00:41:36,560
Speaker 1: so you were never in front of the mic. Yeah,

708
00:41:36,600 --> 00:41:38,440
Speaker 1: I was on the air at w m r Q,

709
00:41:39,880 --> 00:41:44,400
Speaker 1: but I was also a music director and assistant program director.

710
00:41:45,520 --> 00:41:50,719
Speaker 1: And um, our attitude was, you know, these are little kids,

711
00:41:50,760 --> 00:41:55,640
Speaker 1: were we can easily you know, get them crazy in

712
00:41:55,719 --> 00:41:58,400
Speaker 1: a good way, you know, just by doing you know,

713
00:41:59,160 --> 00:42:02,000
Speaker 1: just a supercharged kind of radio. And we did that.

714
00:42:02,680 --> 00:42:07,120
Speaker 1: It was very successful. And then one day one of

715
00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:12,080
Speaker 1: the people I had sent a proposal to was ABC. Now,

716
00:42:12,160 --> 00:42:16,000
Speaker 1: were you still sending them when you had your job? No? Okay,

717
00:42:16,080 --> 00:42:18,279
Speaker 1: so they This was actually maybe a year or two later,

718
00:42:18,640 --> 00:42:20,440
Speaker 1: like a year later because I was a dem or Q,

719
00:42:20,600 --> 00:42:23,360
Speaker 1: which was the top forty station, about a year and

720
00:42:23,640 --> 00:42:26,239
Speaker 1: it was Alan Shaw from ABC. He said, you know,

721
00:42:26,360 --> 00:42:29,200
Speaker 1: we've gotten your proposal and we've had a chance to

722
00:42:29,239 --> 00:42:33,960
Speaker 1: look at it, okay, and would you like to talk

723
00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:35,640
Speaker 1: to us about being a program director of one of

724
00:42:35,680 --> 00:42:40,920
Speaker 1: our stations. Yeah. So um he flew down to Miami

725
00:42:41,120 --> 00:42:43,840
Speaker 1: and we met and the next day they offered me

726
00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:47,439
Speaker 1: uh w r I F and Detroit, which said, yeah,

727
00:42:47,560 --> 00:42:51,000
Speaker 1: all going from Miami to Detroit and February was it

728
00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:54,480
Speaker 1: was difficult, but so now you were also gonna be

729
00:42:54,520 --> 00:42:59,759
Speaker 1: on the air. I was making two fifty dollars a

730
00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:03,640
Speaker 1: year a week. There was a wage in price freeze

731
00:43:03,760 --> 00:43:07,000
Speaker 1: that Nixon put out and they couldn't give me a raise,

732
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:10,360
Speaker 1: and they said, you know when the raising wage in

733
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:15,560
Speaker 1: price freeze cancels will pay you more. But yeahs So

734
00:43:15,600 --> 00:43:17,320
Speaker 1: you got at w R r F. What is the station?

735
00:43:17,360 --> 00:43:21,839
Speaker 1: Before you get there? It was underground mishmash all over

736
00:43:21,880 --> 00:43:28,000
Speaker 1: the road and run by um like revolutionaries. It was

737
00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:33,720
Speaker 1: just they were more interested in uh creating um mess

738
00:43:35,080 --> 00:43:39,960
Speaker 1: um revolution than they weren't winning. So that was interesting.

739
00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:43,520
Speaker 1: Way who was creating mass revolutions? Well, the existing staff

740
00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:54,359
Speaker 1: which was okay, what year seventy early seventy two and um, okay.

741
00:43:54,360 --> 00:43:56,359
Speaker 1: I was there for a while and I was doing

742
00:43:56,400 --> 00:43:58,600
Speaker 1: the ABC format, which is a lot. It was great,

743
00:43:58,640 --> 00:44:00,520
Speaker 1: but it was a lot different from what I had mind.

744
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:04,480
Speaker 1: And then one day what was the ABC format? It

745
00:44:04,719 --> 00:44:07,800
Speaker 1: was a very tight it's kind of a O R format,

746
00:44:08,120 --> 00:44:12,120
Speaker 1: but very restrictive, none of the none of the magic.

747
00:44:12,200 --> 00:44:16,279
Speaker 1: It was very um and we did go to number

748
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:20,719
Speaker 1: one in teens, beating c KLW, so it worked. Um.

749
00:44:21,360 --> 00:44:25,239
Speaker 1: Then our afternoon drive JOCKET w x y Z, the

750
00:44:25,680 --> 00:44:29,000
Speaker 1: sister station the Riff w RF, came to me and said,

751
00:44:29,040 --> 00:44:31,920
Speaker 1: you know, I have a friend in Raleigh, North Carolina,

752
00:44:32,760 --> 00:44:34,759
Speaker 1: and I told him about what you guys are doing

753
00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:38,080
Speaker 1: and all your ideas, and he wants to do something

754
00:44:38,120 --> 00:44:41,040
Speaker 1: with his FM. His a M was w PTF we

755
00:44:41,200 --> 00:44:46,560
Speaker 1: Protect the Family and big monstrous uh southern middle of

756
00:44:46,600 --> 00:44:48,920
Speaker 1: the Road station and they had this FM they doen

757
00:44:49,040 --> 00:44:52,439
Speaker 1: running just background music on. I said, well it sounds great.

758
00:44:53,200 --> 00:44:57,960
Speaker 1: So as guy Carl Venters flies up to Detroit we

759
00:44:58,040 --> 00:45:01,759
Speaker 1: have dinner and on the spot said come on, do

760
00:45:01,880 --> 00:45:06,840
Speaker 1: your format. Uh great, So I did the format Darren.

761
00:45:06,880 --> 00:45:10,839
Speaker 1: It went to number one like in one reading book

762
00:45:11,600 --> 00:45:14,839
Speaker 1: and a B. It was in the Hamilton's Report, which

763
00:45:14,920 --> 00:45:17,680
Speaker 1: was one of the big trade papers. Then did like

764
00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:20,560
Speaker 1: a cover story on it. You know, QDR and rolling

765
00:45:20,719 --> 00:45:24,640
Speaker 1: number one and ABC sit for wait a minute, do

766
00:45:24,719 --> 00:45:27,440
Speaker 1: you work for us or for them? And basically they

767
00:45:27,480 --> 00:45:29,640
Speaker 1: gave me an ultimatum, you can either get rid of

768
00:45:29,719 --> 00:45:33,200
Speaker 1: that client and work with us, or you can go

769
00:45:33,320 --> 00:45:36,000
Speaker 1: your own way. And I decided I'm gonna go my

770
00:45:36,080 --> 00:45:40,160
Speaker 1: own way and do uh so w qd R and

771
00:45:42,200 --> 00:45:44,759
Speaker 1: and they were just a consultant in North Carolina. How

772
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:49,080
Speaker 1: much were you charging the station? Thousand dollars a month? Yeah,

773
00:45:49,640 --> 00:45:51,919
Speaker 1: I think that was it. And then got another station

774
00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:53,799
Speaker 1: down in New Orleans w R and Oh how did

775
00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:58,719
Speaker 1: you get them? Um start after w R w qd

776
00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:04,480
Speaker 1: R success just um uh sent letters around, but then

777
00:46:04,560 --> 00:46:08,480
Speaker 1: the big break came New Orleans. You did get take

778
00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:12,440
Speaker 1: that station over? Yeah? And the big break, Well there

779
00:46:12,440 --> 00:46:15,040
Speaker 1: are w qd R and Rawley was repped by a

780
00:46:15,120 --> 00:46:19,080
Speaker 1: company called Crystal, which was our national radio representation firm,

781
00:46:19,960 --> 00:46:23,400
Speaker 1: and a guy named Gordon Hastings who ran it, called

782
00:46:23,520 --> 00:46:26,200
Speaker 1: one day and said, you know, can you do what

783
00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:29,160
Speaker 1: you're doing? And for all other markets? Says, oh, absolutely,

784
00:46:29,680 --> 00:46:33,279
Speaker 1: no problem. So so, well there's the TAFT Broadcasting chain.

785
00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:36,319
Speaker 1: And I'd like to introduce you to Carl Wagner, who

786
00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:39,239
Speaker 1: runs the operation, runs the radio group because they don't

787
00:46:39,239 --> 00:46:40,919
Speaker 1: know what to do with their fans, but they see

788
00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:45,000
Speaker 1: that's the future. Would you meet with them if it? Sure? So, Carl,

789
00:46:45,040 --> 00:46:46,840
Speaker 1: and I met at the n A B in New Orleans,

790
00:46:47,800 --> 00:46:49,880
Speaker 1: and he said, I love it. You can't love it.

791
00:46:50,760 --> 00:46:52,400
Speaker 1: I want you to talk to all of our general

792
00:46:52,480 --> 00:46:57,239
Speaker 1: managers at our annual manager's meeting, which is coming up

793
00:46:57,239 --> 00:46:59,560
Speaker 1: in a couple of weeks. Don't keep this gain. Can

794
00:46:59,600 --> 00:47:02,719
Speaker 1: you be there? Yeah? So flew to keep his game

795
00:47:03,640 --> 00:47:06,120
Speaker 1: and TAFT broadcast. It was so funny because again I

796
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:08,680
Speaker 1: had long hair and a beard, and these guys were

797
00:47:08,719 --> 00:47:12,759
Speaker 1: all very preppy, and um so I did the presentation

798
00:47:13,680 --> 00:47:21,440
Speaker 1: and signed almost all and signed Buffalo, Kansas City, Columbus, Pittsburgh,

799
00:47:22,920 --> 00:47:25,640
Speaker 1: all in but Cincinnati because they were happy with their

800
00:47:25,680 --> 00:47:30,440
Speaker 1: top forty direction. Um So anyway, um we went in

801
00:47:30,560 --> 00:47:33,400
Speaker 1: and uh did most of the TAFT group. And what

802
00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:36,680
Speaker 1: really helped me at that pitch was these guys. Again,

803
00:47:36,719 --> 00:47:40,440
Speaker 1: we're all really preppy, you know, the EAD shirts and uh,

804
00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:43,640
Speaker 1: short hair. Me and another guy who were the only

805
00:47:43,680 --> 00:47:47,680
Speaker 1: two guests. They're guy named Ed McLaughlin from ABC. Uh,

806
00:47:48,080 --> 00:47:51,160
Speaker 1: we're doubles partners in the tennis tournament. And we won

807
00:47:52,680 --> 00:47:55,360
Speaker 1: and they were laughing at us. You know, McLoughlin is

808
00:47:55,360 --> 00:47:57,320
Speaker 1: an old guy in this hippie you know, and we

809
00:47:57,480 --> 00:48:01,080
Speaker 1: kicked their ass and I think that the only thing

810
00:48:01,120 --> 00:48:03,280
Speaker 1: better would be if I would win the golf tournament,

811
00:48:03,360 --> 00:48:07,120
Speaker 1: which it didn't even enter. But that cemented a really

812
00:48:07,200 --> 00:48:10,440
Speaker 1: good long term relationship. And all four of those more

813
00:48:10,719 --> 00:48:15,239
Speaker 1: five of those markets. Uh boy again, first book just exploded,

814
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:19,799
Speaker 1: and um that's what really when it really took off,

815
00:48:19,840 --> 00:48:22,279
Speaker 1: because that got a lot of attention, and that's when

816
00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:27,400
Speaker 1: people started calling and uh saying, hey, can you be

817
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:31,640
Speaker 1: in San Francisco tomorrow, Seattle, whatever, And it also started

818
00:48:31,680 --> 00:48:35,080
Speaker 1: becoming a business with contracts and all that and how

819
00:48:35,160 --> 00:48:38,759
Speaker 1: much did you charge? Um, it was usually uh at

820
00:48:38,800 --> 00:48:43,680
Speaker 1: that time thousands and two thousand a month, and uh,

821
00:48:43,840 --> 00:48:45,799
Speaker 1: you know I didn't know what to charge if that's

822
00:48:45,800 --> 00:48:47,920
Speaker 1: why I'm asked him. Yeah, it's just you know, I

823
00:48:48,000 --> 00:48:51,680
Speaker 1: had a guitar case in the suitcase, and but I

824
00:48:51,760 --> 00:48:54,879
Speaker 1: knew this guy kept seeing this guy Ken't Burkhardt, who

825
00:48:55,120 --> 00:48:58,640
Speaker 1: was scoring a lot of success at AM Radio, and

826
00:48:58,800 --> 00:49:00,719
Speaker 1: I actually had met him at one of the conventions

827
00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:03,000
Speaker 1: and I called him up, said, Kent, you got the

828
00:49:03,080 --> 00:49:05,359
Speaker 1: A M thing down, and you're you know, you've been

829
00:49:05,400 --> 00:49:08,319
Speaker 1: a group had and you're you know, old in your

830
00:49:08,360 --> 00:49:11,640
Speaker 1: forties whatever, and I got the FM thing. Maybe we

831
00:49:11,719 --> 00:49:14,200
Speaker 1: gotta put put things together. He said, great idea, can't

832
00:49:14,280 --> 00:49:17,960
Speaker 1: Let's meet in in uh St Paul. So we met

833
00:49:18,360 --> 00:49:21,160
Speaker 1: literally a couple of days later at KSTP and St.

834
00:49:21,200 --> 00:49:24,799
Speaker 1: Paul in a conference room and just hammered out a deal.

835
00:49:25,520 --> 00:49:27,680
Speaker 1: And that's when I, uh, you know, a couple of

836
00:49:27,719 --> 00:49:30,360
Speaker 1: days later, moved to Atlanta and we started Burkhard Abrams.

837
00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:34,200
Speaker 1: So he was in Atlanta and CASTP was his station,

838
00:49:34,840 --> 00:49:36,680
Speaker 1: and I was in Chicago. Okay, so you make a

839
00:49:36,760 --> 00:49:40,440
Speaker 1: deal fifty fifty partners and what is what did you say?

840
00:49:40,480 --> 00:49:43,120
Speaker 1: You hammer out a deal? What elements are in the deal? Well,

841
00:49:43,239 --> 00:49:45,719
Speaker 1: he would handle all the business side, all the contracts,

842
00:49:46,080 --> 00:49:51,759
Speaker 1: uh all the front of the travel expenses, um um,

843
00:49:52,719 --> 00:49:57,040
Speaker 1: all of his contacts and uh, I would go ahead

844
00:49:57,080 --> 00:50:01,560
Speaker 1: and you know, you sign him up all I'll get him,

845
00:50:01,719 --> 00:50:05,279
Speaker 1: get him ratings. Okay, So what happened? It was great. Um.

846
00:50:05,960 --> 00:50:07,960
Speaker 1: He did again did introduce me to a lot of

847
00:50:08,120 --> 00:50:12,280
Speaker 1: his UH group heads that were otherwise tough to contact,

848
00:50:12,920 --> 00:50:15,840
Speaker 1: and it was a great relationship and uh we just

849
00:50:16,040 --> 00:50:18,480
Speaker 1: really exploded. He got to the point in the mid

850
00:50:18,640 --> 00:50:20,879
Speaker 1: seventies when it was like, oh no, not another news

851
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:25,319
Speaker 1: stations just getting so many and I just really took

852
00:50:25,400 --> 00:50:29,279
Speaker 1: off and kept going. And you know the rest of

853
00:50:29,320 --> 00:50:32,280
Speaker 1: the sort of history. When it was his pet comedy stations.

854
00:50:32,360 --> 00:50:36,000
Speaker 1: Did you have, uh, rock stations, probably about a little

855
00:50:36,040 --> 00:50:38,360
Speaker 1: over a hundred, and what other stations you have, like

856
00:50:38,480 --> 00:50:41,279
Speaker 1: a M Top four. He had to you weren't doing

857
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:44,600
Speaker 1: anything with that, Okay. So the funny story is in

858
00:50:44,760 --> 00:50:49,680
Speaker 1: ninety nine he uh my stations were blowing up disco records.

859
00:50:50,120 --> 00:50:53,239
Speaker 1: Meanwhile he was consulting w K to You, which went

860
00:50:53,280 --> 00:50:56,680
Speaker 1: to number one doing disco. So people thought we were

861
00:50:56,719 --> 00:51:00,719
Speaker 1: fighting and okay, so what was your pitch then? Um,

862
00:51:02,360 --> 00:51:07,320
Speaker 1: the pitch, which UH did a lot of, was talking about,

863
00:51:08,360 --> 00:51:11,799
Speaker 1: first of all, identifying the audience. We call them vulnerable

864
00:51:11,880 --> 00:51:14,880
Speaker 1: Top forty listeners. These are people who listen to Top

865
00:51:15,000 --> 00:51:19,000
Speaker 1: forty and there's cums are huge, but really didn't like

866
00:51:19,080 --> 00:51:21,239
Speaker 1: it when Bread or the Carpenters came on, but loved

867
00:51:21,280 --> 00:51:24,560
Speaker 1: it when Santana and the Moody Blues came on. So

868
00:51:24,680 --> 00:51:27,640
Speaker 1: what if we're creating a format that eliminates Bread and

869
00:51:27,680 --> 00:51:29,959
Speaker 1: the Carpenters and all that stuff, which is you know, fine,

870
00:51:30,080 --> 00:51:33,160
Speaker 1: it's not us, and really focus on this new generation

871
00:51:33,239 --> 00:51:38,360
Speaker 1: of artists and change the familiarity factor from song title

872
00:51:38,440 --> 00:51:42,080
Speaker 1: to artists. So instead of just the hit songs, you'd

873
00:51:42,120 --> 00:51:45,960
Speaker 1: hear those, but you'd hear so much depth. And it

874
00:51:46,120 --> 00:51:48,880
Speaker 1: was called the oh wow factor. So people would hear, well,

875
00:51:48,960 --> 00:51:52,680
Speaker 1: let's uh Santana, but it's not oh ya coma a again.

876
00:51:53,120 --> 00:51:55,640
Speaker 1: You know, it's some other cool track that's some moody blues,

877
00:51:55,680 --> 00:51:57,960
Speaker 1: but it's not Knights in White Satin. And so we

878
00:51:58,040 --> 00:52:02,680
Speaker 1: had tremendous depth and yet didn't sacrifice familiarity. Of course,

879
00:52:02,719 --> 00:52:05,680
Speaker 1: we did introduce new artists. What we did is we

880
00:52:05,920 --> 00:52:08,400
Speaker 1: really got into him. And because I found a lot

881
00:52:08,440 --> 00:52:12,040
Speaker 1: of the progressive stations, would you know, add a new record,

882
00:52:12,120 --> 00:52:16,239
Speaker 1: but play it, you know, infrequently because the morning guy

883
00:52:16,320 --> 00:52:18,080
Speaker 1: didn't like it. The night guy loved it, so he'd

884
00:52:18,080 --> 00:52:20,080
Speaker 1: played it a lot. But you know, so we added.

885
00:52:20,560 --> 00:52:25,120
Speaker 1: So we talked about the audience, the basic nature of

886
00:52:25,200 --> 00:52:30,160
Speaker 1: the format. Um talked about the importance of image enhancers,

887
00:52:30,239 --> 00:52:34,080
Speaker 1: which were the special features which enhanced the image of

888
00:52:34,440 --> 00:52:36,400
Speaker 1: what we were trying to create, which was as commercial

889
00:52:36,480 --> 00:52:41,640
Speaker 1: as possible without losing progressive identity. It's real commercial, easy

890
00:52:41,719 --> 00:52:44,200
Speaker 1: to listen to for those vulnerable top for your listeners,

891
00:52:44,480 --> 00:52:46,520
Speaker 1: but still had that progressive edge. It was because it

892
00:52:46,600 --> 00:52:50,239
Speaker 1: was you know, Yes and Jethro Toll and um. But

893
00:52:50,400 --> 00:52:52,440
Speaker 1: the image enhancers were a big part of it. That

894
00:52:52,560 --> 00:52:55,560
Speaker 1: was the Beatles, A to Z and uh. That was

895
00:52:55,680 --> 00:52:58,480
Speaker 1: you know things you still here now which were new

896
00:52:58,560 --> 00:53:00,680
Speaker 1: at the time. You know too for Tuesdays midnight album

897
00:53:00,760 --> 00:53:03,480
Speaker 1: hours will play a whole album, you know, uninterrupted so

898
00:53:03,560 --> 00:53:06,520
Speaker 1: you can check it out, and um, you know all

899
00:53:06,560 --> 00:53:10,440
Speaker 1: those things. And so we talked about again the audience,

900
00:53:11,120 --> 00:53:15,239
Speaker 1: the sort of structure of the format, and then we

901
00:53:15,320 --> 00:53:18,960
Speaker 1: talked a lot about their market and where the listeners

902
00:53:18,960 --> 00:53:22,200
Speaker 1: would come from, which is very important because they didn't

903
00:53:22,239 --> 00:53:24,880
Speaker 1: want anything syndicated. They wanted it to be you know,

904
00:53:25,040 --> 00:53:30,680
Speaker 1: adjusted for And we talked about staffing and um, usually

905
00:53:30,760 --> 00:53:33,320
Speaker 1: a long Q and A where they just have questions

906
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:36,560
Speaker 1: and okay, so let's soon a station bought it. How

907
00:53:36,640 --> 00:53:43,200
Speaker 1: much marketing was necessary, you know, um, really not much.

908
00:53:44,480 --> 00:53:47,279
Speaker 1: A lot of these stations didn't have much budget. It

909
00:53:47,400 --> 00:53:50,080
Speaker 1: was either a big am station and there's FM, which

910
00:53:50,080 --> 00:53:52,040
Speaker 1: they wanted to run cheap, which we were able to do,

911
00:53:52,840 --> 00:53:55,880
Speaker 1: or was mom and pop stations. It just so some

912
00:53:56,080 --> 00:54:00,080
Speaker 1: stations later on, particularly when it started getting ratings and

913
00:54:00,400 --> 00:54:04,640
Speaker 1: making money a lot of television, but initially it was

914
00:54:04,719 --> 00:54:09,480
Speaker 1: word of mouth, okay, and uh and little things like

915
00:54:09,560 --> 00:54:13,160
Speaker 1: we'd fly banners over concerts and stuff like that. Okay,

916
00:54:13,239 --> 00:54:15,000
Speaker 1: how much Let's say I was one of your stations

917
00:54:15,400 --> 00:54:17,520
Speaker 1: after I bought it? How much? What would I get

918
00:54:17,600 --> 00:54:20,200
Speaker 1: from you? Would you call me, would you send a letter?

919
00:54:20,280 --> 00:54:23,239
Speaker 1: What would happen? Okay? We would have. First thing we

920
00:54:23,400 --> 00:54:26,560
Speaker 1: do back then was the program director, who was either

921
00:54:26,640 --> 00:54:29,399
Speaker 1: the existing guy or somebody we'd help help them find,

922
00:54:29,760 --> 00:54:32,839
Speaker 1: would come to Atlanta for two to three days, usually

923
00:54:32,920 --> 00:54:36,400
Speaker 1: over a weekend for an orientation or I just explain

924
00:54:36,480 --> 00:54:39,400
Speaker 1: everything to him and they asked questions and it's just

925
00:54:39,920 --> 00:54:41,719
Speaker 1: so when we're done with that three days, as p

926
00:54:41,880 --> 00:54:45,640
Speaker 1: D is sort of brainwashed, gets it. And then together

927
00:54:45,800 --> 00:54:48,120
Speaker 1: we'd fly to the market and spend about a week

928
00:54:48,719 --> 00:54:52,880
Speaker 1: setting it up. And that would include, you know, just uh,

929
00:54:53,040 --> 00:54:56,439
Speaker 1: introducing the format obviously, meeting with the staff a lot,

930
00:54:56,840 --> 00:54:59,279
Speaker 1: meeting with the sales department, going on sales calls if

931
00:54:59,320 --> 00:55:04,120
Speaker 1: they they wanted that, and um. And after the first

932
00:55:04,200 --> 00:55:08,160
Speaker 1: week it should be pretty much you know, coming along

933
00:55:08,680 --> 00:55:12,200
Speaker 1: and then would usually come back uh every six weeks

934
00:55:12,280 --> 00:55:15,000
Speaker 1: or so, and spent two days. So you were on

935
00:55:15,040 --> 00:55:17,400
Speaker 1: the road a lot. I was on the road constantly.

936
00:55:17,920 --> 00:55:20,920
Speaker 1: And when in this picture did you get married? Uh?

937
00:55:21,320 --> 00:55:24,960
Speaker 1: Right in the middle of so the fact my wife

938
00:55:25,040 --> 00:55:26,920
Speaker 1: was a DJ at w q d R, which is

939
00:55:26,960 --> 00:55:29,520
Speaker 1: where I met her. Hu and you're still together. Yeah,

940
00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:32,279
Speaker 1: pretty amazing. How many years have been I should know this,

941
00:55:32,680 --> 00:55:40,080
Speaker 1: U Uh, forty will be forty four years right? Okay? So, uh,

942
00:55:40,320 --> 00:55:44,840
Speaker 1: many people would say that you killed FM rock radio

943
00:55:45,440 --> 00:55:48,759
Speaker 1: because you codified it. What's your reaction to that. Well,

944
00:55:48,880 --> 00:55:52,120
Speaker 1: a couple of things. One, no one person can kill

945
00:55:52,920 --> 00:55:56,919
Speaker 1: as big as FM radio. But you know, I think

946
00:55:57,280 --> 00:55:59,959
Speaker 1: a lot of people thought we went in and change

947
00:56:00,000 --> 00:56:03,680
Speaker 1: each free form station to this real tight format and uh,

948
00:56:04,040 --> 00:56:07,040
Speaker 1: you know, get rid of those free form guys. Now

949
00:56:07,080 --> 00:56:11,920
Speaker 1: our attitude as we had a formula. It was aimed

950
00:56:11,920 --> 00:56:15,880
Speaker 1: again at the vulnerable top forty listener, recognize that there

951
00:56:15,880 --> 00:56:19,839
Speaker 1: are a lot of people really passionate about music. Uh.

952
00:56:20,560 --> 00:56:23,160
Speaker 1: We just went to the clubs and all that that

953
00:56:23,239 --> 00:56:26,840
Speaker 1: didn't really want to hear you know, Foreigner or led Zeppelin,

954
00:56:27,600 --> 00:56:31,359
Speaker 1: and they had their stations, the progressive stations, and it's

955
00:56:31,440 --> 00:56:33,359
Speaker 1: really not our fault and a lot of those more

956
00:56:33,400 --> 00:56:37,640
Speaker 1: adventurous progressive stations just uh shot themselves in the foot

957
00:56:37,760 --> 00:56:42,200
Speaker 1: with lack of discipline or whatever. So our attitude is,

958
00:56:42,280 --> 00:56:44,840
Speaker 1: you know, we had a style. Everybody knows what it is.

959
00:56:44,960 --> 00:56:48,080
Speaker 1: It was the soundtrack of America, got huge ratings, made

960
00:56:48,080 --> 00:56:50,279
Speaker 1: a lot of people happy. But it wasn't at the

961
00:56:50,320 --> 00:56:54,080
Speaker 1: expense of anybody else. It was everybody, any station, any

962
00:56:54,160 --> 00:56:56,080
Speaker 1: person was free to come in and try to do

963
00:56:56,200 --> 00:57:00,279
Speaker 1: something better. And at the time it was labeled Superstars. Yeah,

964
00:57:00,360 --> 00:57:03,600
Speaker 1: that was kind of a handle for never on the air,

965
00:57:04,040 --> 00:57:07,920
Speaker 1: but for the station owners and stuff. And how did

966
00:57:08,040 --> 00:57:09,840
Speaker 1: somebody come up with a O L do you remember?

967
00:57:10,600 --> 00:57:13,800
Speaker 1: You know? Uh, we always called an album rock and

968
00:57:13,920 --> 00:57:16,680
Speaker 1: I think it might have been Mike Harrison who came

969
00:57:16,760 --> 00:57:20,560
Speaker 1: up with roblem oriented rock. Mike Harrison now was in

970
00:57:20,640 --> 00:57:23,400
Speaker 1: the talk field. What was he doing then? Was he?

971
00:57:23,840 --> 00:57:26,400
Speaker 1: I think he was program director of like kPr I

972
00:57:26,520 --> 00:57:28,920
Speaker 1: and Sandy. Okay, so you had a trade sheet from

973
00:57:28,960 --> 00:57:32,800
Speaker 1: you're doing this, yeah, what are there must be competitors?

974
00:57:34,280 --> 00:57:36,640
Speaker 1: Early on there were a lot of local people who

975
00:57:36,680 --> 00:57:39,560
Speaker 1: tried it, and it was usually we know our market better,

976
00:57:40,240 --> 00:57:45,320
Speaker 1: Uh Van Halen is not big here, or just something ridiculous, uh,

977
00:57:45,480 --> 00:57:49,160
Speaker 1: and they just you know failed, but later on about

978
00:57:49,240 --> 00:57:52,680
Speaker 1: nineteen I guess was about eighty. We had consulting competitors.

979
00:57:53,320 --> 00:57:56,320
Speaker 1: There was Jeff Pollock and John Sebastian and I think

980
00:57:56,320 --> 00:57:59,280
Speaker 1: a little later on Fred Jacobs mainly, and then there

981
00:57:59,280 --> 00:58:01,080
Speaker 1: are a lot of sort of second tier guys. So

982
00:58:01,200 --> 00:58:05,200
Speaker 1: you basically owned the seventies. Yeah, okay, At what point

983
00:58:05,320 --> 00:58:11,400
Speaker 1: did you stop working as a radio consolant? Uh? I

984
00:58:11,640 --> 00:58:17,600
Speaker 1: joined Satellite Music Network, which actually our company started, or

985
00:58:17,840 --> 00:58:21,680
Speaker 1: co started, And because then I saw the future. I

986
00:58:21,720 --> 00:58:23,440
Speaker 1: was getting a little burned out on the travel for

987
00:58:23,520 --> 00:58:27,400
Speaker 1: one thing, but also saw the future of satellites. And

988
00:58:27,560 --> 00:58:29,800
Speaker 1: this was not satellite radio like XAM, but it was

989
00:58:30,880 --> 00:58:34,440
Speaker 1: a dozen for ten formats broadcasting from Dallas, beaming up

990
00:58:34,480 --> 00:58:38,200
Speaker 1: to satellite, then beaming down to local radio stations that

991
00:58:38,280 --> 00:58:41,320
Speaker 1: would rebroadcast it. And I just thought there was a

992
00:58:41,360 --> 00:58:44,760
Speaker 1: lot of potential there. And we started the z rock format,

993
00:58:44,880 --> 00:58:50,000
Speaker 1: which was unfortunately, um it was too scary for a

994
00:58:50,040 --> 00:58:51,560
Speaker 1: lot of people. We got a lot of to tell

995
00:58:51,640 --> 00:58:54,280
Speaker 1: my audience, what is zerock format is? Z rock was

996
00:58:54,400 --> 00:58:57,560
Speaker 1: a heavy metal, really hard rock. It was you know,

997
00:58:57,600 --> 00:59:00,680
Speaker 1: we played led Zeppelin and Hendrix, but the real meat

998
00:59:00,720 --> 00:59:04,280
Speaker 1: of it was Metallica and uh and Motley Crewe and

999
00:59:05,080 --> 00:59:07,920
Speaker 1: like that. And it was hard in your face. It

1000
00:59:08,080 --> 00:59:12,600
Speaker 1: was really great. It was like a party. It was insane.

1001
00:59:13,400 --> 00:59:15,800
Speaker 1: And then it started working on their other formats too,

1002
00:59:16,320 --> 00:59:20,920
Speaker 1: and we had about stations, mostly in smaller markets. And

1003
00:59:21,320 --> 00:59:24,600
Speaker 1: make a long story short, ABC Era, Yeah, ABC bought

1004
00:59:24,640 --> 00:59:28,960
Speaker 1: it Cap Cities, No ABC, and they really kind of

1005
00:59:29,000 --> 00:59:31,600
Speaker 1: screwed it up, you know. Okay, wait, how many years

1006
00:59:31,600 --> 00:59:33,160
Speaker 1: if you went there at eight eight, how many years

1007
00:59:33,200 --> 00:59:35,600
Speaker 1: later at ABC buy it about three or four years

1008
00:59:35,640 --> 00:59:37,880
Speaker 1: into it? Okay? And just to be clear, you're beaming

1009
00:59:37,920 --> 00:59:43,920
Speaker 1: down seven or just programming to use real time? Okay?

1010
00:59:43,920 --> 00:59:47,200
Speaker 1: And where where were all the stations? They were everywhere? Um,

1011
00:59:48,160 --> 00:59:50,200
Speaker 1: you know, I mean the stations were. Where was your

1012
00:59:50,320 --> 01:00:00,840
Speaker 1: headquarters in Dallas? In Dallases? Okay, So let's go back. Uh,

1013
01:00:01,440 --> 01:00:04,360
Speaker 1: disco comes along. What was your viewpoint of that? Ah,

1014
01:00:06,080 --> 01:00:11,080
Speaker 1: excuse me? That was interesting. Disco was about we thought

1015
01:00:11,120 --> 01:00:13,200
Speaker 1: it was a hundred eighty degrees from rock and roll.

1016
01:00:13,440 --> 01:00:17,840
Speaker 1: Whereas rock and roll was about real drummers sweating, disco

1017
01:00:18,200 --> 01:00:22,560
Speaker 1: was about drum machines. Rock and roll was about festival seating, crime,

1018
01:00:22,640 --> 01:00:26,040
Speaker 1: your way up to the front. Uh, Disco was about

1019
01:00:26,600 --> 01:00:29,160
Speaker 1: you know, a bouncer who if you didn't look right

1020
01:00:29,200 --> 01:00:32,320
Speaker 1: when you let you in. Rock and roll was all

1021
01:00:32,360 --> 01:00:38,880
Speaker 1: about tremendous musicianship and guitars and disco no guitars. Rock

1022
01:00:39,000 --> 01:00:42,120
Speaker 1: was about long hair. Disco was about short, greasy hair,

1023
01:00:42,880 --> 01:00:45,400
Speaker 1: and uh, so we knew it. And then we also

1024
01:00:45,480 --> 01:00:49,840
Speaker 1: had some research just to back up our belief. And

1025
01:00:50,080 --> 01:00:52,240
Speaker 1: just stop here for a second. Where are you at

1026
01:00:52,320 --> 01:00:55,040
Speaker 1: on research? Because I lovel you're researching in high school,

1027
01:00:55,320 --> 01:00:58,080
Speaker 1: you're researching then, but you're talking about today's radio stations

1028
01:00:58,160 --> 01:01:01,400
Speaker 1: have research which is wrong. Yeah, in street research is

1029
01:01:01,520 --> 01:01:05,120
Speaker 1: what I call it, uh, whereas the more traditional research

1030
01:01:06,200 --> 01:01:10,640
Speaker 1: is heavily flawed. The three research things we got got

1031
01:01:10,720 --> 01:01:15,040
Speaker 1: involved in UM early on in like or so we did.

1032
01:01:15,160 --> 01:01:18,560
Speaker 1: I did hitchhiking studies or I'd wake up in the morning.

1033
01:01:18,560 --> 01:01:20,960
Speaker 1: Couldn't do that now, but back then you could hitchhike

1034
01:01:21,000 --> 01:01:26,440
Speaker 1: and watch people's uh reaction to the radio. That's one

1035
01:01:26,480 --> 01:01:30,400
Speaker 1: thing I learned real quick was in radio circles talking

1036
01:01:30,520 --> 01:01:33,680
Speaker 1: up a record, you know, up to the vocals was boy,

1037
01:01:33,760 --> 01:01:39,400
Speaker 1: that was good. People hated that. Shut up. So we

1038
01:01:39,440 --> 01:01:41,880
Speaker 1: found a lot of things like that, and so you

1039
01:01:41,920 --> 01:01:43,520
Speaker 1: would get into state, would you tell them you were

1040
01:01:43,600 --> 01:01:46,880
Speaker 1: checking out or were you just observed? Just observed? Then

1041
01:01:46,920 --> 01:01:50,760
Speaker 1: we did a thing called callback cards were at participating

1042
01:01:50,840 --> 01:01:53,680
Speaker 1: record stores. Whenever anybody bought a record, they fill out

1043
01:01:53,720 --> 01:01:57,000
Speaker 1: a card, put their name, age, phone number, and the

1044
01:01:57,040 --> 01:01:59,280
Speaker 1: record they bought, put it in a box. There would

1045
01:01:59,280 --> 01:02:01,800
Speaker 1: be a drawing it's huff uh, and then we'd collect

1046
01:02:01,880 --> 01:02:05,120
Speaker 1: the cards and call back the people who bought a

1047
01:02:05,160 --> 01:02:08,520
Speaker 1: given a record, and two things we want to find out.

1048
01:02:08,600 --> 01:02:12,480
Speaker 1: Mainly one was okay, you bought the record, you lived

1049
01:02:12,520 --> 01:02:15,240
Speaker 1: with one of the cool songs, and so that really

1050
01:02:15,320 --> 01:02:18,120
Speaker 1: helped us figure out whatever three four or five songs

1051
01:02:18,200 --> 01:02:20,960
Speaker 1: to play from the album. The other one was to

1052
01:02:21,080 --> 01:02:24,400
Speaker 1: find out if people who bought albums just because we

1053
01:02:24,480 --> 01:02:27,680
Speaker 1: were album rock didn't mean play any album. And then

1054
01:02:27,680 --> 01:02:31,440
Speaker 1: I remember there was one band, Graham Central Station, which

1055
01:02:31,560 --> 01:02:33,360
Speaker 1: was a pretty cool band. But we called the people

1056
01:02:33,400 --> 01:02:36,520
Speaker 1: back who bought it. They didn't listen to us and

1057
01:02:37,120 --> 01:02:40,640
Speaker 1: they never listened, just not our audience. So that was

1058
01:02:40,720 --> 01:02:45,560
Speaker 1: helpful and we um and then uh, there's still a

1059
01:02:45,560 --> 01:02:48,080
Speaker 1: lot of exit polls outside of concerts, again just to

1060
01:02:48,520 --> 01:02:50,720
Speaker 1: get a feel for the people. But that's the sort

1061
01:02:50,760 --> 01:02:54,800
Speaker 1: of stuff we did. We never what are people doing today? Oh?

1062
01:02:54,920 --> 01:02:59,520
Speaker 1: Now it's he's um, you know formal you know, Manhattan

1063
01:02:59,600 --> 01:03:05,120
Speaker 1: telephone book sized reports on testing songs and focus groups

1064
01:03:05,240 --> 01:03:08,720
Speaker 1: and things like that, where I just find them pretty useful.

1065
01:03:08,720 --> 01:03:11,200
Speaker 1: I think they're one of the problems that radio is

1066
01:03:11,280 --> 01:03:15,720
Speaker 1: so tight. It's like with call call out research, I remembered,

1067
01:03:15,920 --> 01:03:19,720
Speaker 1: because not everybody's okay, yeah, that's where you um, I'm sorry,

1068
01:03:19,760 --> 01:03:23,160
Speaker 1: not call out, but auditorium testing. That's where you invite

1069
01:03:23,520 --> 01:03:27,600
Speaker 1: jet people into an auditorium, give him a form and

1070
01:03:28,280 --> 01:03:32,600
Speaker 1: you play to this group of people, uh different you know,

1071
01:03:32,600 --> 01:03:35,200
Speaker 1: a couple of seconds of different songs, and people rate

1072
01:03:35,280 --> 01:03:37,880
Speaker 1: it one to five. You know one I hated, five,

1073
01:03:37,920 --> 01:03:43,560
Speaker 1: I love it, and that's all. Then uh uh put

1074
01:03:43,680 --> 01:03:49,880
Speaker 1: together in into a book and I remember it sort

1075
01:03:49,920 --> 01:03:53,640
Speaker 1: of forced Greed. And when it first came out, uh,

1076
01:03:53,880 --> 01:03:57,080
Speaker 1: because we were playing everything by the Beatles, it said

1077
01:03:57,120 --> 01:04:00,240
Speaker 1: that there were really about forty Beatles songs that really

1078
01:04:00,320 --> 01:04:03,880
Speaker 1: you were, you know, fives and alright, so station would

1079
01:04:03,880 --> 01:04:06,120
Speaker 1: go and play those forty and then they do another

1080
01:04:06,200 --> 01:04:10,080
Speaker 1: research project and say, you know, we're playing forty, some's

1081
01:04:10,080 --> 01:04:13,080
Speaker 1: our competitive let's take it down to twenty see what happens,

1082
01:04:13,400 --> 01:04:16,040
Speaker 1: and then they go down to ten and finally they're

1083
01:04:16,040 --> 01:04:20,360
Speaker 1: playing Hey Jude, maybe day in the life. Um. So

1084
01:04:20,840 --> 01:04:26,720
Speaker 1: these were your stations, as we said, just like please

1085
01:04:27,600 --> 01:04:34,480
Speaker 1: um and uh. When disco happened, um, we obviously did

1086
01:04:34,560 --> 01:04:37,720
Speaker 1: the callback cards and would find it. People didn't dislike

1087
01:04:37,800 --> 01:04:43,400
Speaker 1: the disco, people didn't dislike rock who bought the discor

1088
01:04:43,760 --> 01:04:46,280
Speaker 1: they hated it. You know, it's just no this this

1089
01:04:46,440 --> 01:04:49,760
Speaker 1: is the beat Man and uh so we decided to

1090
01:04:49,840 --> 01:04:53,480
Speaker 1: take kind of anti disco stance and what it really

1091
01:04:53,520 --> 01:04:58,040
Speaker 1: meant was reinforcing our rock and roll heritage and all that. Um.

1092
01:04:59,320 --> 01:05:02,320
Speaker 1: And then Steve Doll uh took it a step further

1093
01:05:02,560 --> 01:05:05,720
Speaker 1: at our client was he was he a client? And

1094
01:05:05,800 --> 01:05:07,840
Speaker 1: were you aware of what he was gonna do? Yeah,

1095
01:05:08,680 --> 01:05:12,960
Speaker 1: tell us your viewpoint. Um, he was doing it on

1096
01:05:13,080 --> 01:05:15,320
Speaker 1: the you know. We went into the Loop and Loop

1097
01:05:15,440 --> 01:05:19,040
Speaker 1: was at that time a great state Chicago. Yes, and

1098
01:05:19,280 --> 01:05:21,960
Speaker 1: we had the opportunity to just build it from scratch.

1099
01:05:22,080 --> 01:05:27,280
Speaker 1: So we every element of that station. We adjusted. The

1100
01:05:27,440 --> 01:05:31,480
Speaker 1: logo you know, looked like graffiti in an underpass in Chicago.

1101
01:05:32,200 --> 01:05:36,320
Speaker 1: The station just had a rock beat to it, you know,

1102
01:05:36,360 --> 01:05:38,880
Speaker 1: and that didn't play James Taylor, but played a lot

1103
01:05:38,920 --> 01:05:43,120
Speaker 1: of you know, Ted Nugent and Heart and all that. Um.

1104
01:05:43,440 --> 01:05:46,080
Speaker 1: But anyway, Steve really caught on with caught onto it,

1105
01:05:46,560 --> 01:05:48,800
Speaker 1: and he started blowing up disco records on the air

1106
01:05:49,520 --> 01:05:51,479
Speaker 1: and people would call him, hey, blow up that Donna

1107
01:05:51,520 --> 01:05:57,200
Speaker 1: Summer and he'd blow him up. And then, um, it

1108
01:05:57,400 --> 01:06:00,280
Speaker 1: was I think the idea of some any of the

1109
01:06:00,320 --> 01:06:03,520
Speaker 1: White Sox we're having attendence problems, why doesn't he do

1110
01:06:03,640 --> 01:06:08,400
Speaker 1: disco demolition live? And everybody's thought, wow, great idea, Sox game,

1111
01:06:08,800 --> 01:06:13,680
Speaker 1: and of course the rest is history. But it was unbelievable, Um,

1112
01:06:14,840 --> 01:06:19,680
Speaker 1: I mean everything from on TV. There were Bill Veck,

1113
01:06:19,680 --> 01:06:22,880
Speaker 1: who owned the White Sox, um face to face with

1114
01:06:22,920 --> 01:06:26,560
Speaker 1: Steve Doll and you know Bill ember one line. Bill said,

1115
01:06:26,560 --> 01:06:29,320
Speaker 1: you know that was terrible you did this and Steve said,

1116
01:06:29,360 --> 01:06:31,000
Speaker 1: what are you complaining about? You haven't had that many

1117
01:06:31,040 --> 01:06:36,600
Speaker 1: people in misty parks in UM and thenny Kid kick

1118
01:06:36,640 --> 01:06:38,480
Speaker 1: I got kind of weird because people would send in

1119
01:06:39,480 --> 01:06:42,919
Speaker 1: broken radios. So some asshole, you know, playing his disco

1120
01:06:43,120 --> 01:06:45,760
Speaker 1: here's what I did do in Steven. And then they

1121
01:06:45,840 --> 01:06:47,840
Speaker 1: took the disco demolition on the road and would do

1122
01:06:47,920 --> 01:06:52,200
Speaker 1: it in front of discos. This was even after Steve

1123
01:06:52,280 --> 01:06:56,800
Speaker 1: Dollard blowing up the record, so he kept going, uh no, no,

1124
01:06:57,280 --> 01:07:01,080
Speaker 1: eventually ran its course. But the station from a two

1125
01:07:01,240 --> 01:07:05,480
Speaker 1: three to a seven to inlay with that is I'm sorry,

1126
01:07:05,560 --> 01:07:09,480
Speaker 1: that's a rating service one one three or so. That's

1127
01:07:09,560 --> 01:07:12,400
Speaker 1: kind of a low share of seven two percent percent

1128
01:07:12,480 --> 01:07:17,360
Speaker 1: of the audience. Um, seven two is huge seven two

1129
01:07:17,400 --> 01:07:21,000
Speaker 1: in Chicago particularly. And then we looked at the diaries,

1130
01:07:21,080 --> 01:07:24,920
Speaker 1: which are the things that people filled out to determine

1131
01:07:24,960 --> 01:07:29,320
Speaker 1: the ratings, and uh, it was unbelievable. People were putting

1132
01:07:29,720 --> 01:07:32,680
Speaker 1: six am to midnight the Loop because it rocks, and

1133
01:07:32,880 --> 01:07:35,720
Speaker 1: the next person long live the Loop, you know, and

1134
01:07:35,800 --> 01:07:38,720
Speaker 1: it just listened all day because we thought that was

1135
01:07:38,800 --> 01:07:42,840
Speaker 1: almost flukey, that kind of rise, but really hit a

1136
01:07:42,920 --> 01:07:46,200
Speaker 1: nerve with the Blue Collars Chicago. Okay. I also remember

1137
01:07:46,280 --> 01:07:48,440
Speaker 1: there are a couple of things there used to be.

1138
01:07:48,800 --> 01:07:52,440
Speaker 1: This was in Jimmy Carter and I ran and the Hostages,

1139
01:07:53,000 --> 01:07:55,080
Speaker 1: and it seemed like a lot of these rock stations

1140
01:07:55,120 --> 01:07:59,160
Speaker 1: moved to the right where rock stations historically been left. Yeah,

1141
01:07:59,320 --> 01:08:03,480
Speaker 1: that's true. Um they did, uh you know, I remember

1142
01:08:03,520 --> 01:08:07,400
Speaker 1: there were novelty songs Bom Bom, bomb. That what I

1143
01:08:07,480 --> 01:08:12,720
Speaker 1: was thinking, And uh, yeah, they were not all the DJs,

1144
01:08:12,800 --> 01:08:15,920
Speaker 1: but a lot of them were very pro USA And

1145
01:08:16,400 --> 01:08:19,920
Speaker 1: so how I'm talking about Steve Dhal. How important were

1146
01:08:19,960 --> 01:08:23,240
Speaker 1: the DJs on the air at the Loop and ideally

1147
01:08:23,320 --> 01:08:25,800
Speaker 1: at all stations, but it wasn't always a case but

1148
01:08:25,960 --> 01:08:29,439
Speaker 1: Loop they were critical. They were again the they tied

1149
01:08:29,520 --> 01:08:32,280
Speaker 1: it all together. They were rock and roll at Kaizak

1150
01:08:32,360 --> 01:08:38,040
Speaker 1: Skid annuals and uh and um Mitch Michael's and just

1151
01:08:38,200 --> 01:08:42,360
Speaker 1: every So what would cause them to get fired? Uh,

1152
01:08:43,000 --> 01:08:47,439
Speaker 1: in the case of Steve Dhal, usually ownership, So they

1153
01:08:47,600 --> 01:08:49,639
Speaker 1: just like, this guy is gonna get us in trouble,

1154
01:08:49,680 --> 01:08:52,960
Speaker 1: He's gonna lose their license. Other than in that end,

1155
01:08:53,320 --> 01:08:56,479
Speaker 1: you know, radio they uh there's a Harry Chapin's song

1156
01:08:56,560 --> 01:08:59,160
Speaker 1: about it. Very few people have a long tenure. What

1157
01:08:59,320 --> 01:09:02,040
Speaker 1: is that really out? Uh yeah, it's funny about radio.

1158
01:09:02,120 --> 01:09:05,120
Speaker 1: Guys just keep moving to bigger markets and bigger markets

1159
01:09:05,560 --> 01:09:06,960
Speaker 1: and then one day they can't work at all. And

1160
01:09:07,000 --> 01:09:10,000
Speaker 1: then they can't work at all they go into real

1161
01:09:10,120 --> 01:09:14,559
Speaker 1: estate or or someone going to record promotion whatever. But yeah,

1162
01:09:14,600 --> 01:09:18,519
Speaker 1: it's weirdest business. I remember reading uh want ads for

1163
01:09:18,640 --> 01:09:22,200
Speaker 1: DJs and everyone it had not a floater meaning you know,

1164
01:09:22,240 --> 01:09:25,760
Speaker 1: floating from station to station. But there's a website I

1165
01:09:25,800 --> 01:09:29,679
Speaker 1: think it's called Satisfaction for forty that takes uh, pretty

1166
01:09:29,760 --> 01:09:32,280
Speaker 1: much everybody has been on the air and shows you

1167
01:09:32,360 --> 01:09:35,240
Speaker 1: where they've been, and it's unbelievable. People stay for a

1168
01:09:35,360 --> 01:09:38,880
Speaker 1: year in the twenty stations over ten years. Okay, So

1169
01:09:39,000 --> 01:09:42,960
Speaker 1: then h MTV now listen on the on the record

1170
01:09:43,120 --> 01:09:48,120
Speaker 1: end of it. In seventy nine, records went totally down. Okay,

1171
01:09:48,640 --> 01:09:51,679
Speaker 1: Black Friday at CBS records is that was Black Monday?

1172
01:09:51,720 --> 01:09:54,760
Speaker 1: Can't remember? And uh, they fired all these people. Did

1173
01:09:54,800 --> 01:09:57,519
Speaker 1: you feel that at the radio stations at all? No,

1174
01:09:57,760 --> 01:10:00,720
Speaker 1: not really. Okay, So then MTV comes along. How does

1175
01:10:00,760 --> 01:10:05,120
Speaker 1: that impact you? Well, we were very much guiding our

1176
01:10:05,200 --> 01:10:10,000
Speaker 1: stations to avoid the MTV inferiority complex because there were

1177
01:10:10,040 --> 01:10:12,559
Speaker 1: some people who said, I'm PP will never last. Others,

1178
01:10:12,640 --> 01:10:16,640
Speaker 1: oh my god, we're fucked um, and I was like, no,

1179
01:10:17,840 --> 01:10:22,000
Speaker 1: you've got like ninety seven percent of America listens. You're

1180
01:10:22,320 --> 01:10:26,840
Speaker 1: to radio, your dominant. Um, they're not gonna go away.

1181
01:10:27,000 --> 01:10:28,560
Speaker 1: Just you know, let them do what they do. You

1182
01:10:28,680 --> 01:10:30,280
Speaker 1: do what you do as great as you can. And

1183
01:10:30,360 --> 01:10:33,599
Speaker 1: it's just a better experience for everyone. Well, I certainly

1184
01:10:33,680 --> 01:10:36,519
Speaker 1: know in America, I mean in American Los Angeles we

1185
01:10:36,640 --> 01:10:40,360
Speaker 1: ended up getting top forty on the FM, which, kay,

1186
01:10:41,120 --> 01:10:43,240
Speaker 1: you know, the stations of flip format a couple of

1187
01:10:43,320 --> 01:10:47,240
Speaker 1: times and call letters, but they would play basically the

1188
01:10:47,439 --> 01:10:51,639
Speaker 1: MTV hits and only the MTV hits, which we never

1189
01:10:51,760 --> 01:10:54,840
Speaker 1: had that at such tight playlisting on FM. Yeah. I

1190
01:10:54,920 --> 01:10:58,120
Speaker 1: don't think that's necessarily smart idea. I think station is

1191
01:10:58,160 --> 01:10:59,760
Speaker 1: gonna do what they do and do it great and

1192
01:10:59,800 --> 01:11:03,280
Speaker 1: the in MTV blessom, let them do it, Okay. But

1193
01:11:03,360 --> 01:11:06,120
Speaker 1: there are stations, you know. That's when k Rock became

1194
01:11:06,240 --> 01:11:08,479
Speaker 1: Rock of the eighties. It was a three format station

1195
01:11:08,560 --> 01:11:12,120
Speaker 1: with a week signal from Pasadena before that, okay, and

1196
01:11:12,240 --> 01:11:15,840
Speaker 1: then in Los Angeles where peaked, there were five they

1197
01:11:15,880 --> 01:11:19,840
Speaker 1: o our stations, Okay. They would play things like Soft

1198
01:11:19,920 --> 01:11:24,120
Speaker 1: Cell and Human League and Klos and Kmet would not

1199
01:11:24,240 --> 01:11:26,720
Speaker 1: play it, and they eventually went on them. So what

1200
01:11:26,920 --> 01:11:28,720
Speaker 1: was your viewpoint about what was going on? Then? Oh,

1201
01:11:29,040 --> 01:11:31,559
Speaker 1: pay a lot of attention to it. And in fact

1202
01:11:31,600 --> 01:11:36,320
Speaker 1: I went to England right around that time and just

1203
01:11:36,400 --> 01:11:37,720
Speaker 1: to see what was going on, and some of the

1204
01:11:37,760 --> 01:11:40,200
Speaker 1: bands were just they weren't gonna happen in America, but

1205
01:11:40,720 --> 01:11:43,720
Speaker 1: the U two's and obviously the Polices, and there were

1206
01:11:44,479 --> 01:11:46,800
Speaker 1: a lot of bands that, hey, we need to pay

1207
01:11:46,840 --> 01:11:49,920
Speaker 1: attention to these guys, and MTV also opened a lot

1208
01:11:50,000 --> 01:11:52,000
Speaker 1: of you know, the men at works and stuff. So

1209
01:11:52,120 --> 01:11:54,280
Speaker 1: we were careful and we used the callback cards a lot,

1210
01:11:54,840 --> 01:11:56,960
Speaker 1: but we were careful about what we added and just

1211
01:11:57,120 --> 01:12:00,479
Speaker 1: made sure that even though it falls under the MTV

1212
01:12:00,720 --> 01:12:04,880
Speaker 1: slash New Wave banner, that the right for us. And

1213
01:12:05,520 --> 01:12:08,040
Speaker 1: there are a lot of stations that you know, played

1214
01:12:08,040 --> 01:12:10,760
Speaker 1: records that were new waves just to have a new

1215
01:12:10,840 --> 01:12:13,720
Speaker 1: wave category and they weren't really right. That didn't fit

1216
01:12:13,800 --> 01:12:16,120
Speaker 1: well with Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, but there were some

1217
01:12:16,280 --> 01:12:20,240
Speaker 1: that did, and obviously the you twos and Polices and right. Okay,

1218
01:12:20,760 --> 01:12:26,400
Speaker 1: so MTV is rolling. Uh. A couple of questions, when

1219
01:12:26,439 --> 01:12:29,200
Speaker 1: would you decide to change coal letters when you change

1220
01:12:29,240 --> 01:12:33,960
Speaker 1: the format, Um, it really depended on the station if

1221
01:12:34,000 --> 01:12:37,080
Speaker 1: they were already a rock station, usually keeping what they

1222
01:12:37,120 --> 01:12:39,840
Speaker 1: were if they were going, which a lot of them did,

1223
01:12:39,920 --> 01:12:45,840
Speaker 1: from adult contemporary or beautiful music to rock. We try

1224
01:12:45,880 --> 01:12:47,960
Speaker 1: to do it right in sync with when we were

1225
01:12:48,080 --> 01:12:51,000
Speaker 1: launching the new format. Okay, you also started to become

1226
01:12:51,040 --> 01:12:56,599
Speaker 1: involved with acts. How did that happen? Well, um, it's

1227
01:12:56,840 --> 01:13:00,880
Speaker 1: uh a couple of ways. One, there's some information and

1228
01:13:01,120 --> 01:13:04,080
Speaker 1: insight I think we had on the American audience that,

1229
01:13:05,520 --> 01:13:08,400
Speaker 1: you know, if they found it helpful. Again, yes, Moody

1230
01:13:08,479 --> 01:13:12,200
Speaker 1: Blues bands like that made the English ones who were

1231
01:13:12,560 --> 01:13:17,679
Speaker 1: in some cases getting bad advice. I remember people telling

1232
01:13:17,760 --> 01:13:20,240
Speaker 1: the Moody Blues kids are dancing, now you gotta make dancer,

1233
01:13:21,360 --> 01:13:24,840
Speaker 1: or telling yes, uh, make short records. Nobody wants to

1234
01:13:24,880 --> 01:13:27,800
Speaker 1: hear the long stuff anymore. Uh. So I'd come in

1235
01:13:27,880 --> 01:13:32,000
Speaker 1: as a sort of the voice of reality and you know,

1236
01:13:32,120 --> 01:13:39,240
Speaker 1: established and credibility with him. And then um uh Chris

1237
01:13:39,360 --> 01:13:44,360
Speaker 1: Blackwell at Island hired me to just do sort of

1238
01:13:44,439 --> 01:13:47,320
Speaker 1: reports on a lot of their bands, in which I

1239
01:13:47,400 --> 01:13:51,040
Speaker 1: did everything from I think it's freak he goes to

1240
01:13:51,120 --> 01:13:54,800
Speaker 1: Hollywood too. Uh. I think we did some YouTube stuff

1241
01:13:54,840 --> 01:13:59,000
Speaker 1: and all that, and uh, Capital asked us to get

1242
01:13:59,040 --> 01:14:03,919
Speaker 1: involved with Bob's Seager. So we do these um thorough reports,

1243
01:14:04,479 --> 01:14:08,920
Speaker 1: but very unlike you know the traditional research of hardcore numbers,

1244
01:14:09,000 --> 01:14:12,719
Speaker 1: these sort of painted, living breathing pictures of what people

1245
01:14:12,920 --> 01:14:15,600
Speaker 1: how people perceive the artists. Now you were were not

1246
01:14:15,760 --> 01:14:19,000
Speaker 1: involved in the jeth Row tull Uh. You know, they

1247
01:14:19,120 --> 01:14:21,040
Speaker 1: up famously decided what was gonna be on the radio,

1248
01:14:21,080 --> 01:14:24,559
Speaker 1: what we're gonna be the singles based on research. No, okay,

1249
01:14:24,680 --> 01:14:26,960
Speaker 1: that was the one that but okay, so let's continue.

1250
01:14:27,120 --> 01:14:29,160
Speaker 1: So now you're on the other thing is you're a

1251
01:14:29,200 --> 01:14:32,160
Speaker 1: big guitarist through all this, right yeah? Yeah, so you

1252
01:14:32,200 --> 01:14:34,240
Speaker 1: could connect with people And did you spend time in

1253
01:14:34,320 --> 01:14:37,360
Speaker 1: the studio with these bands? And you know, because you've

1254
01:14:37,360 --> 01:14:42,120
Speaker 1: got some producing credits, but would you actually give input? Yeah? Absolutely,

1255
01:14:42,439 --> 01:14:47,559
Speaker 1: Like what kind of input? Um? Usually before the fact. Uh.

1256
01:14:48,880 --> 01:14:51,719
Speaker 1: You know, it's like ever with General Giant, the record

1257
01:14:51,800 --> 01:14:56,040
Speaker 1: wasn't a hit, could have been. Um. I remember playing

1258
01:14:56,120 --> 01:14:59,040
Speaker 1: him Kashmir and not saying, make a song like this,

1259
01:15:00,200 --> 01:15:04,560
Speaker 1: this is the kind of heaviness you need, uh, And

1260
01:15:05,160 --> 01:15:07,479
Speaker 1: um I'd play him a lot of stuff that they

1261
01:15:07,520 --> 01:15:11,799
Speaker 1: hadn't heard. And with Yes that was very deep, particularly

1262
01:15:12,000 --> 01:15:16,320
Speaker 1: Chris Squire. It was a good friend. We argue for

1263
01:15:16,479 --> 01:15:20,519
Speaker 1: hours about the future of Yes, and with John Anderson too,

1264
01:15:21,400 --> 01:15:24,040
Speaker 1: and they were really in a tough position because they

1265
01:15:24,120 --> 01:15:28,799
Speaker 1: had management and at that time even the label steering

1266
01:15:28,840 --> 01:15:31,880
Speaker 1: and what I thought was the wrong direction and uh,

1267
01:15:33,120 --> 01:15:36,400
Speaker 1: the biggest problem was they had such a fluke smash

1268
01:15:36,520 --> 01:15:39,760
Speaker 1: with nine five that was says, oh, they need to

1269
01:15:39,800 --> 01:15:42,639
Speaker 1: make more records like this. No, let that one Live

1270
01:15:42,720 --> 01:15:46,439
Speaker 1: and Breathe. But there's other, you know, kind of yes

1271
01:15:46,600 --> 01:15:48,960
Speaker 1: is ms that need to be in the mix. We

1272
01:15:49,040 --> 01:15:53,200
Speaker 1: also had a label, two labels, uh, one called Voyager

1273
01:15:53,320 --> 01:15:57,680
Speaker 1: and one called Cinema. Yeah, those were who were on

1274
01:15:57,760 --> 01:16:03,360
Speaker 1: those anybody successful. Voyager we had Dave Mason and Johnny

1275
01:16:03,439 --> 01:16:08,280
Speaker 1: Winter and on Cinema that was more of an electronic

1276
01:16:08,400 --> 01:16:11,240
Speaker 1: music label. We had one that got a lot of airplay,

1277
01:16:11,320 --> 01:16:16,280
Speaker 1: which was Pete Barton's I don't remember so called in Dreams.

1278
01:16:17,479 --> 01:16:20,080
Speaker 1: The problem with that the label, that's a full time job,

1279
01:16:22,280 --> 01:16:24,639
Speaker 1: and who was running that for you? It was sort

1280
01:16:24,680 --> 01:16:29,840
Speaker 1: of self run and they were let's go back. So

1281
01:16:29,960 --> 01:16:35,040
Speaker 1: now you sell the satellite distribution company, and where does

1282
01:16:35,080 --> 01:16:37,720
Speaker 1: that leave you. In the early nineties, I went right

1283
01:16:37,800 --> 01:16:43,000
Speaker 1: to UM. Well it was UM sold to ABC. I

1284
01:16:43,320 --> 01:16:46,760
Speaker 1: stood up, stayed around, and then eventually ABC was sold

1285
01:16:46,800 --> 01:16:51,320
Speaker 1: to Cap Cities, And with each reincarnation it became more sterile.

1286
01:16:52,360 --> 01:16:56,280
Speaker 1: And I had heard about satellite radio and the other

1287
01:16:56,400 --> 01:17:02,200
Speaker 1: kind accent and you know, there's nobody to talk to.

1288
01:17:02,479 --> 01:17:07,000
Speaker 1: I mean, they were just like these companies, but you know,

1289
01:17:07,080 --> 01:17:11,280
Speaker 1: they had no offices nothing. So one day I actually

1290
01:17:11,600 --> 01:17:16,840
Speaker 1: um called a recruiter who I had heard was I

1291
01:17:17,000 --> 01:17:22,360
Speaker 1: was doing business with them finding people. I said, well, uh,

1292
01:17:23,600 --> 01:17:27,599
Speaker 1: I need to be there, and uh. The someone flew

1293
01:17:27,640 --> 01:17:29,920
Speaker 1: out to l A for the and UH talked to

1294
01:17:29,960 --> 01:17:31,840
Speaker 1: them and they said, oh, yeah, you sound like a

1295
01:17:32,040 --> 01:17:36,240
Speaker 1: perfect candidate. And went to UM Washington to meet with

1296
01:17:37,400 --> 01:17:40,240
Speaker 1: Gary Parsons, who was the telecom guy who was the

1297
01:17:40,560 --> 01:17:43,000
Speaker 1: chairman of the company, and a guy named Lan Levin

1298
01:17:43,040 --> 01:17:46,280
Speaker 1: who was sort of his right hand man, and spent

1299
01:17:46,400 --> 01:17:48,960
Speaker 1: the day and I did the pitch of the century

1300
01:17:48,960 --> 01:17:52,439
Speaker 1: because I really wanted this one, and I got hired.

1301
01:17:52,479 --> 01:17:54,640
Speaker 1: I was actually the first person they hired. Really, what

1302
01:17:54,800 --> 01:17:59,040
Speaker 1: was your pitch? The oh, the pitch was really defining it.

1303
01:18:00,080 --> 01:18:05,880
Speaker 1: Z Again, we're telecommunications guys whose idea was rock would

1304
01:18:05,880 --> 01:18:10,720
Speaker 1: be rock one rock to rock three country one know

1305
01:18:11,040 --> 01:18:14,840
Speaker 1: and uh and it would be like music just no DJs, no, no,

1306
01:18:15,080 --> 01:18:19,400
Speaker 1: just music audio service. That's what they call it. No, no,

1307
01:18:19,600 --> 01:18:23,519
Speaker 1: you're missing it. They should be amazing radio stations. Uh

1308
01:18:23,720 --> 01:18:28,320
Speaker 1: give them names, given character personalities. Let's the time is

1309
01:18:28,439 --> 01:18:31,640
Speaker 1: now looking at Terrestra radio to hand and just the

1310
01:18:31,800 --> 01:18:35,240
Speaker 1: industry in general, to hand pick amazing people to do

1311
01:18:35,479 --> 01:18:36,960
Speaker 1: radio for the reason they got into it in the

1312
01:18:37,040 --> 01:18:41,559
Speaker 1: first place, rather than what it's turned into. And gave

1313
01:18:41,600 --> 01:18:44,160
Speaker 1: me examples of names of formats and what the channel

1314
01:18:44,320 --> 01:18:49,320
Speaker 1: or channels, what the channels might be, and um talked

1315
01:18:49,360 --> 01:18:53,519
Speaker 1: about how we'd go ahead and put it together and

1316
01:18:53,960 --> 01:18:56,080
Speaker 1: how we do boot camps and things like that and

1317
01:18:56,640 --> 01:19:01,160
Speaker 1: re educate people and uh all so you know, provide

1318
01:19:01,200 --> 01:19:04,080
Speaker 1: the company with just this whole attitude this is not

1319
01:19:05,000 --> 01:19:09,880
Speaker 1: an audience or this is a cultural musical broadcasting revolution,

1320
01:19:10,479 --> 01:19:14,320
Speaker 1: and let's get people excited. Because again they they just

1321
01:19:14,400 --> 01:19:16,360
Speaker 1: come from a different area and they were very uh

1322
01:19:17,200 --> 01:19:20,280
Speaker 1: you know, like telecommunications guys. You know, we get some

1323
01:19:20,400 --> 01:19:24,040
Speaker 1: tape machines and just okay, so what year did you

1324
01:19:24,120 --> 01:19:27,479
Speaker 1: start working for x M? Okay, how long after the

1325
01:19:27,560 --> 01:19:31,400
Speaker 1: pitch did they say? Yes? Next day? Okay, so you're

1326
01:19:31,439 --> 01:19:35,240
Speaker 1: working at x M. X M is slaughtering serious, which

1327
01:19:35,320 --> 01:19:39,200
Speaker 1: launches Leader. Then Howard comes up. What's your viewpoint on Howard?

1328
01:19:39,280 --> 01:19:42,000
Speaker 1: And then how it played out in satellite radio? Oh god, Um,

1329
01:19:42,920 --> 01:19:46,679
Speaker 1: I went on a rampage to get Howard I said,

1330
01:19:46,720 --> 01:19:48,920
Speaker 1: it's all over. We have sevent in the market now

1331
01:19:49,160 --> 01:19:52,559
Speaker 1: we'll have if we get Howard. We gotta get him,

1332
01:19:53,360 --> 01:19:56,120
Speaker 1: and me and the CEO went up there and talked

1333
01:19:56,200 --> 01:20:00,439
Speaker 1: to Don buck Wald, this agent yep, and met with

1334
01:20:00,479 --> 01:20:04,760
Speaker 1: Howard a bunch of times. And I'm still piste off

1335
01:20:04,840 --> 01:20:08,280
Speaker 1: about this. But the board said, no, was it gonna

1336
01:20:08,280 --> 01:20:10,280
Speaker 1: be a similar deal to what Sirius ended up giving

1337
01:20:10,360 --> 01:20:12,360
Speaker 1: him news, which is less right. It was gonna be

1338
01:20:12,400 --> 01:20:14,200
Speaker 1: like a hundred million. They end up him a hundred

1339
01:20:14,200 --> 01:20:16,519
Speaker 1: millions for I think for five guaranteed years or four

1340
01:20:16,600 --> 01:20:20,000
Speaker 1: guaranteed years. Right, it was half of that, okay, But

1341
01:20:20,640 --> 01:20:22,240
Speaker 1: we were the early game and done. He wanted to

1342
01:20:22,280 --> 01:20:25,080
Speaker 1: be with us. He thought the other guys were lame.

1343
01:20:25,560 --> 01:20:29,599
Speaker 1: This is before mel Karmson came aboard serious and uh

1344
01:20:29,760 --> 01:20:32,599
Speaker 1: he was ready in the kind of we penciled out

1345
01:20:32,640 --> 01:20:37,280
Speaker 1: the terms and uh again the board and the senior

1346
01:20:37,360 --> 01:20:41,760
Speaker 1: management of x M just thought, uh, you know, not

1347
01:20:41,880 --> 01:20:44,920
Speaker 1: gonna be worth it. Uh you know, it's we can

1348
01:20:45,040 --> 01:20:47,479
Speaker 1: we can get Oprah for that kind of money and

1349
01:20:47,760 --> 01:20:52,880
Speaker 1: uh no, no, you don't understand. And they're non radio

1350
01:20:52,960 --> 01:20:56,280
Speaker 1: background sort of shine through and I lost that one.

1351
01:20:57,680 --> 01:21:01,519
Speaker 1: And then Uh. Karmason joined Serious. Of course, he and

1352
01:21:01,760 --> 01:21:04,479
Speaker 1: Stern had a great relationship. He brought him board right away.

1353
01:21:05,120 --> 01:21:09,080
Speaker 1: And I was like, okay, so back when Serious was

1354
01:21:09,160 --> 01:21:12,720
Speaker 1: offering double what you were, Okay, Howard didn't go with

1355
01:21:12,800 --> 01:21:15,320
Speaker 1: you because of the money. No, Howard didn't go because

1356
01:21:15,360 --> 01:21:17,720
Speaker 1: our our board said no. They said no to the

1357
01:21:17,760 --> 01:21:20,519
Speaker 1: half the money. They said no to the idea of Howard.

1358
01:21:20,560 --> 01:21:23,439
Speaker 1: Money wasn't a problem. They were afraid that Howard is

1359
01:21:23,479 --> 01:21:27,280
Speaker 1: going to stink up the station. Howard, he's trouble. Uh

1360
01:21:27,800 --> 01:21:31,000
Speaker 1: didn't he say uh bad things about the FCC commissioner

1361
01:21:31,160 --> 01:21:34,400
Speaker 1: And we don't want to lose their license and uh,

1362
01:21:34,600 --> 01:21:36,960
Speaker 1: you know these guys, there will be another Howard that

1363
01:21:37,000 --> 01:21:39,840
Speaker 1: comes along. And yeah, right, yeah, okay, how did you

1364
01:21:39,880 --> 01:21:43,080
Speaker 1: get Bob Dylan to do with show on X? Okay,

1365
01:21:43,240 --> 01:21:44,840
Speaker 1: that was a good one. I had a list of

1366
01:21:44,920 --> 01:21:47,680
Speaker 1: people I thought, you know, really would be great and

1367
01:21:47,760 --> 01:21:50,720
Speaker 1: Dylan was right at the top. And tried for a

1368
01:21:50,840 --> 01:21:53,000
Speaker 1: long time to find out who to talk to and

1369
01:21:54,200 --> 01:21:56,840
Speaker 1: talk to the label. They weren't really too helpful. Talk

1370
01:21:56,920 --> 01:22:00,080
Speaker 1: to another guy who kind of manages tours. Finally, a

1371
01:22:00,120 --> 01:22:03,639
Speaker 1: guy named Jeff Rozen. Somebody said, oh he handles Dylan's affairs.

1372
01:22:04,160 --> 01:22:10,439
Speaker 1: So I called Jeff and he said, uh, wow, that's

1373
01:22:10,520 --> 01:22:14,960
Speaker 1: interesting Bob Dylan and next M Bob loves x M.

1374
01:22:15,400 --> 01:22:19,680
Speaker 1: He has like twelve videos. Oh great, so you mind

1375
01:22:19,720 --> 01:22:21,640
Speaker 1: if I come This is him talking about if I

1376
01:22:21,680 --> 01:22:22,920
Speaker 1: come down and talk to you guys in d C.

1377
01:22:23,360 --> 01:22:25,559
Speaker 1: He was coming down to check us out, see if

1378
01:22:25,600 --> 01:22:29,320
Speaker 1: we weren't you know, okay in retrospect began DC as

1379
01:22:29,320 --> 01:22:30,880
Speaker 1: opposed to New York or l A. Did it hurt

1380
01:22:31,000 --> 01:22:35,000
Speaker 1: x M? No? Okay, And we had a presence in

1381
01:22:35,120 --> 01:22:38,120
Speaker 1: New York at the Lincoln Lincoln Center, the Jazz at

1382
01:22:38,160 --> 01:22:40,639
Speaker 1: Lincoln Center, so we did lots of broadcasts from there,

1383
01:22:40,680 --> 01:22:43,920
Speaker 1: and okay, so Rosen comes down. Rosen comes down, and

1384
01:22:44,120 --> 01:22:46,639
Speaker 1: he really we hit it off immediately. We're going through

1385
01:22:47,080 --> 01:22:50,160
Speaker 1: old Melody Maker magazines and old billboards and I kept

1386
01:22:50,200 --> 01:22:53,840
Speaker 1: in my office and uh. I took him on the

1387
01:22:53,880 --> 01:22:56,680
Speaker 1: tour like did with with you, and he met you know,

1388
01:22:56,760 --> 01:22:59,639
Speaker 1: the Eddie Kilroys and all the characters, and he met

1389
01:22:59,680 --> 01:23:03,880
Speaker 1: our c EO Hugh Panero, who I was afraid might

1390
01:23:03,960 --> 01:23:05,760
Speaker 1: be a little corporate, but now he was great. He

1391
01:23:05,840 --> 01:23:08,679
Speaker 1: was like, Hey, we're all about music. Bob's you know, God,

1392
01:23:09,120 --> 01:23:14,080
Speaker 1: you know and all that, and he said, this is great.

1393
01:23:14,200 --> 01:23:16,040
Speaker 1: You know. I spent a couple of hours and he

1394
01:23:16,120 --> 01:23:18,040
Speaker 1: went back to New York. That I met him, I

1395
01:23:18,120 --> 01:23:21,960
Speaker 1: flipped in New York. We had lunch and he said, uh, yeah,

1396
01:23:22,080 --> 01:23:23,479
Speaker 1: you know, I talked to Bob, would really like to

1397
01:23:23,520 --> 01:23:28,800
Speaker 1: do a channel. And as I said, how about a show?

1398
01:23:29,600 --> 01:23:32,479
Speaker 1: You know, why a channel? Do you realize what that

1399
01:23:32,520 --> 01:23:36,720
Speaker 1: would take? You know, I mean that's way too adventure.

1400
01:23:36,840 --> 01:23:39,960
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about, Bob, you can't channel and do you

1401
01:23:40,000 --> 01:23:44,240
Speaker 1: want to hire all these people and all that? And okay,

1402
01:23:44,280 --> 01:23:47,720
Speaker 1: I see your point. A show and uh, make a

1403
01:23:47,760 --> 01:23:49,960
Speaker 1: long story short. He got together with Bob again. They

1404
01:23:50,040 --> 01:23:53,040
Speaker 1: came up with the idea to do theme time radio hour,

1405
01:23:53,920 --> 01:23:56,879
Speaker 1: and then it went through about we did a conference

1406
01:23:56,920 --> 01:23:59,720
Speaker 1: call every week. Bob was sometimes on those. It was

1407
01:23:59,720 --> 01:24:04,800
Speaker 1: a Jeff Rosen and his sort of team and really

1408
01:24:04,880 --> 01:24:07,000
Speaker 1: pot plotted and planned how we're going to launch it

1409
01:24:07,040 --> 01:24:11,559
Speaker 1: and all this and um. Then the lawyers went through

1410
01:24:11,600 --> 01:24:16,520
Speaker 1: the contracts and it was pretty hard, pretty um harmless,

1411
01:24:16,920 --> 01:24:20,280
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't any big surprises. And then finally

1412
01:24:20,360 --> 01:24:22,280
Speaker 1: the contracts were signed to pick a launch date, and

1413
01:24:22,320 --> 01:24:27,800
Speaker 1: again we talked at least every week and then he

1414
01:24:27,880 --> 01:24:30,400
Speaker 1: goes on the air, and it was just amazing how

1415
01:24:30,479 --> 01:24:32,559
Speaker 1: much of the show idea was his or how much?

1416
01:24:32,800 --> 01:24:34,720
Speaker 1: How much input did you have because it was a

1417
01:24:34,800 --> 01:24:38,400
Speaker 1: unique show. Oh no, it was he had total creative control.

1418
01:24:38,640 --> 01:24:40,280
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, I'm not gonna tell you what

1419
01:24:40,400 --> 01:24:42,519
Speaker 1: to do. Okay. Did you end up meeting with him?

1420
01:24:43,439 --> 01:24:46,519
Speaker 1: And what was he like to deal with? Great? He

1421
01:24:46,600 --> 01:24:48,840
Speaker 1: thought that the radio was cool. He's one of these

1422
01:24:48,880 --> 01:24:52,479
Speaker 1: guys who, you know, like all of us, listen to

1423
01:24:52,560 --> 01:24:55,200
Speaker 1: the fifty thou Wealth stations on his Friends to radio

1424
01:24:55,360 --> 01:24:58,719
Speaker 1: and underneath the covers late at night, and was enamored

1425
01:24:58,800 --> 01:25:01,560
Speaker 1: with the dub l I C in Nashville and you

1426
01:25:01,640 --> 01:25:05,360
Speaker 1: know those kind of stations. And but it was all him,

1427
01:25:05,520 --> 01:25:07,840
Speaker 1: all the the ideas and the themes and all that.

1428
01:25:08,840 --> 01:25:14,160
Speaker 1: And um we helped sort of the publicity of it,

1429
01:25:14,200 --> 01:25:16,519
Speaker 1: which didn't need. It's kind like front page of New

1430
01:25:16,600 --> 01:25:19,680
Speaker 1: York Times and Wall Street Journal And uh was it

1431
01:25:19,720 --> 01:25:23,200
Speaker 1: a lucrative deal? Yeah? That was great. It was funny

1432
01:25:23,280 --> 01:25:25,880
Speaker 1: for them. Were they making money on it? Oh? Yeah? Okay,

1433
01:25:26,080 --> 01:25:28,280
Speaker 1: So how does it end ultimately? How does it end

1434
01:25:28,320 --> 01:25:29,840
Speaker 1: for you? And how does it end for x M.

1435
01:25:30,160 --> 01:25:33,040
Speaker 1: Basically there's a merger in Serious ends up running the

1436
01:25:33,080 --> 01:25:34,960
Speaker 1: whole thing. Yeah, I was supposed to be a merger

1437
01:25:35,080 --> 01:25:37,960
Speaker 1: of equals, which is a laugh. Uh. You know it

1438
01:25:38,080 --> 01:25:40,680
Speaker 1: was clear that even though they had less audience and

1439
01:25:41,720 --> 01:25:45,200
Speaker 1: our subscriptions, the next time, uh, when it was announced,

1440
01:25:45,320 --> 01:25:46,760
Speaker 1: you could see the writing on the wall, this is

1441
01:25:46,800 --> 01:25:50,160
Speaker 1: gonna be crazy. And about that time, Randy Michaels and

1442
01:25:50,280 --> 01:25:53,040
Speaker 1: Sam's l called and wondered if I wanted to come

1443
01:25:53,120 --> 01:25:58,880
Speaker 1: up to Chicago hometown and help revolutionize newspapers and uh

1444
01:25:59,320 --> 01:26:01,880
Speaker 1: some of the TV stations who say hell yeah to

1445
01:26:02,000 --> 01:26:04,360
Speaker 1: perfect timing. So that's when I went to Chicago. It

1446
01:26:04,479 --> 01:26:09,280
Speaker 1: was I guess it was two two thousand nine. What

1447
01:26:09,400 --> 01:26:11,439
Speaker 1: do you think of Serious today since you were the

1448
01:26:11,479 --> 01:26:13,920
Speaker 1: programmer at x M. Well, I'm a big fan of

1449
01:26:14,000 --> 01:26:16,760
Speaker 1: it as a concept, but I think they've gotten very

1450
01:26:17,040 --> 01:26:21,720
Speaker 1: uh traditional. Uh they're more like terrestrial radio with the

1451
01:26:21,880 --> 01:26:26,599
Speaker 1: less commercials and uh so I think, well, again, i'm

1452
01:26:26,600 --> 01:26:30,760
Speaker 1: a fan and a subscriber, I think they've gotten a

1453
01:26:30,800 --> 01:26:35,080
Speaker 1: little corporate. Okay, so you famously go with Randy Michaels.

1454
01:26:35,120 --> 01:26:39,439
Speaker 1: He's radio guys who run the Tribune newspapers. What is

1455
01:26:39,520 --> 01:26:42,800
Speaker 1: the vision at the time. Okay, the vision of the

1456
01:26:42,920 --> 01:26:48,640
Speaker 1: newspaper side was um, streamlining it. I mean, you know

1457
01:26:48,760 --> 01:26:51,280
Speaker 1: some of these papers had five restaurant reviewers. You know,

1458
01:26:51,360 --> 01:26:56,599
Speaker 1: no wonder they're losing money, streamlining it, updating the look

1459
01:26:56,640 --> 01:27:01,040
Speaker 1: and feel of it. So it's just modernizing a little bit, um,

1460
01:27:02,479 --> 01:27:06,160
Speaker 1: making sure you know, they were on the right topics. Uh,

1461
01:27:07,120 --> 01:27:11,960
Speaker 1: because I remember, you know, one day, Um, Jimmy Buffett

1462
01:27:12,000 --> 01:27:14,000
Speaker 1: was coming up to Soldier Field, which is a huge

1463
01:27:14,160 --> 01:27:18,639
Speaker 1: you know, sixty thou seats, and that got about half

1464
01:27:18,680 --> 01:27:23,000
Speaker 1: an inch, you know, and there was a change in

1465
01:27:23,160 --> 01:27:26,960
Speaker 1: the cello player at some symphony orcs they got four pages.

1466
01:27:28,640 --> 01:27:32,280
Speaker 1: Um in the White Sox played the Cubs. It was

1467
01:27:32,360 --> 01:27:36,960
Speaker 1: like civil war in Chicago back then, and uh nothing

1468
01:27:37,120 --> 01:27:39,960
Speaker 1: nothing on the front page. They were talking about the

1469
01:27:40,160 --> 01:27:44,120
Speaker 1: perch infestation in the Chicago River or I think so um,

1470
01:27:45,160 --> 01:27:47,879
Speaker 1: and you know, they just trying to change the attitudes

1471
01:27:47,880 --> 01:27:51,040
Speaker 1: a little bit. Uh. There was one guy who said,

1472
01:27:51,360 --> 01:27:55,600
Speaker 1: you know, nobody does investigation investigative journalism like we do,

1473
01:27:56,280 --> 01:27:59,760
Speaker 1: so just you know, not to be uh you know,

1474
01:28:00,160 --> 01:28:02,080
Speaker 1: jerk about it. I just said, well, you know, sixty minutes,

1475
01:28:02,080 --> 01:28:06,880
Speaker 1: that's a pretty either, that's not journalism, that's garbage, that's television. Okay,

1476
01:28:06,960 --> 01:28:09,200
Speaker 1: but you kind of face in that world, and there

1477
01:28:09,200 --> 01:28:10,840
Speaker 1: were a lot of people. You took a lot of flak.

1478
01:28:11,040 --> 01:28:16,040
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I'd say about Actually, when I look back,

1479
01:28:16,160 --> 01:28:20,000
Speaker 1: sevent we're kind of an agreement. Um l A Times

1480
01:28:20,040 --> 01:28:22,519
Speaker 1: in Chicago Tribune was a little higher percentage or a

1481
01:28:22,640 --> 01:28:25,479
Speaker 1: lower percentage of that, but generally throughout the company about

1482
01:28:25,479 --> 01:28:28,880
Speaker 1: seventy in agreement. We gotta do something, Let's move forward,

1483
01:28:28,960 --> 01:28:34,920
Speaker 1: let's stick around another twenty years. Uh, We're like, I

1484
01:28:34,960 --> 01:28:36,599
Speaker 1: don't know where this guy is coming from, and I'll

1485
01:28:36,720 --> 01:28:39,519
Speaker 1: give it a listen in ten percent where this is

1486
01:28:39,600 --> 01:28:43,880
Speaker 1: horrible in terms of dealing with the newspapers themselves, was

1487
01:28:43,960 --> 01:28:45,800
Speaker 1: it only you were You were the king guy on

1488
01:28:45,920 --> 01:28:49,559
Speaker 1: that pretty much? Yeah, okay. Then there's a front page

1489
01:28:49,640 --> 01:28:54,280
Speaker 1: New York Times story and the whole thing blows up. Yes, um,

1490
01:28:55,680 --> 01:28:58,960
Speaker 1: that was about Colonel McCormick, who was the founder of

1491
01:28:59,000 --> 01:29:02,800
Speaker 1: the paper, owner on the paper, and it's heyday, had

1492
01:29:02,880 --> 01:29:08,559
Speaker 1: a m uh sort of a sacred office. I'm surprised

1493
01:29:08,600 --> 01:29:11,400
Speaker 1: he wasn't like stuffed in the corner there. And then

1494
01:29:11,520 --> 01:29:15,559
Speaker 1: nobody went into um up on the top of Tribune

1495
01:29:15,600 --> 01:29:19,759
Speaker 1: Tower and uh, Randy and a couple other guys actually

1496
01:29:19,880 --> 01:29:21,479
Speaker 1: wasn't involved in it, but Randy of a couple of

1497
01:29:21,479 --> 01:29:26,240
Speaker 1: other guys, uh, decided to have a poker party up there.

1498
01:29:26,960 --> 01:29:29,920
Speaker 1: I went and it was great. Uh, you know, a

1499
01:29:29,960 --> 01:29:34,680
Speaker 1: lot of fun, a lot of people and um. Then

1500
01:29:34,800 --> 01:29:37,880
Speaker 1: one of the guys who was there posted pictures of

1501
01:29:37,960 --> 01:29:40,960
Speaker 1: it in Facebook. Those pictures got around to some of

1502
01:29:41,040 --> 01:29:45,920
Speaker 1: the real hardcore you know, tribute lifers. And then and

1503
01:29:46,080 --> 01:29:48,800
Speaker 1: the boy they told this car guy in the New

1504
01:29:48,920 --> 01:29:52,919
Speaker 1: York David Car and they created all sorts of problems

1505
01:29:53,320 --> 01:29:57,120
Speaker 1: and yeah, you know frat uh uh it was it

1506
01:29:57,920 --> 01:30:01,760
Speaker 1: uh frat like behavior and the Tribune company and uh,

1507
01:30:02,160 --> 01:30:07,120
Speaker 1: poker parties. Alcohol there wasn't an alcohol but alcohol, and

1508
01:30:07,280 --> 01:30:09,920
Speaker 1: you know hookers or no hookers either. But you know,

1509
01:30:09,960 --> 01:30:12,439
Speaker 1: it blew out of proportion. But then it ended. They

1510
01:30:12,479 --> 01:30:17,880
Speaker 1: blew everybody out. Yeah I um, I was first. Uh

1511
01:30:18,680 --> 01:30:21,759
Speaker 1: then everybody else followed. I was probably the most visible

1512
01:30:21,800 --> 01:30:26,840
Speaker 1: one there. And uh yeah, they said, this is our opportunity,

1513
01:30:27,240 --> 01:30:29,880
Speaker 1: that the ten percent, this is our opportunity to you know,

1514
01:30:30,040 --> 01:30:33,840
Speaker 1: bring real you know, traditionalists packing into the fault into

1515
01:30:33,840 --> 01:30:37,720
Speaker 1: the leadership, get rid of these these other guys and

1516
01:30:37,880 --> 01:30:42,320
Speaker 1: they were successful. To what degree did that negative publicity

1517
01:30:43,360 --> 01:30:47,240
Speaker 1: hurt your image, hurt you in further business? Um? You know,

1518
01:30:47,280 --> 01:30:49,439
Speaker 1: I don't know because I didn't really go out and

1519
01:30:50,120 --> 01:30:54,400
Speaker 1: talk to me anybody, but probably didn't help um, even

1520
01:30:54,439 --> 01:30:58,880
Speaker 1: though I claim, you know, innocence, But uh, I'm sure

1521
01:30:58,920 --> 01:31:01,200
Speaker 1: there was enough coverage people would look at put a

1522
01:31:01,280 --> 01:31:05,160
Speaker 1: little asterisk by my name. That just because that's essentially

1523
01:31:05,200 --> 01:31:08,439
Speaker 1: about eight or nine years ago. Yeah, okay, So what's

1524
01:31:08,479 --> 01:31:11,920
Speaker 1: been going on since? Well, UH did a company, uh

1525
01:31:12,800 --> 01:31:20,120
Speaker 1: a news station, information station on digital television and it

1526
01:31:20,240 --> 01:31:23,519
Speaker 1: was online called Touch Vision. Did that with Wi Good

1527
01:31:23,560 --> 01:31:28,000
Speaker 1: Broadcasting was a big broadcast in Chicago that lasted a

1528
01:31:28,080 --> 01:31:29,840
Speaker 1: couple of years, and they brought us out because they

1529
01:31:31,640 --> 01:31:35,160
Speaker 1: were traditional TV people and our idea was just too

1530
01:31:35,200 --> 01:31:37,880
Speaker 1: bizarre for him. We had no anchors and we had

1531
01:31:39,320 --> 01:31:42,240
Speaker 1: real We were really flashy. It was great. I should

1532
01:31:42,240 --> 01:31:44,680
Speaker 1: send you some some video of it. But it was

1533
01:31:44,680 --> 01:31:46,400
Speaker 1: a little too scary for them. And it was five

1534
01:31:46,520 --> 01:31:52,040
Speaker 1: very I mean amicable. Uh. Then put together a plan

1535
01:31:52,200 --> 01:31:56,519
Speaker 1: for a company called V like the v so like

1536
01:31:56,640 --> 01:32:00,320
Speaker 1: the peace Sign, and it was gonna be uh five

1537
01:32:00,680 --> 01:32:07,160
Speaker 1: different news information channels but broken into totally new formats. Uh,

1538
01:32:07,600 --> 01:32:11,760
Speaker 1: an African American channel which would be to information what

1539
01:32:11,920 --> 01:32:14,599
Speaker 1: hip hop is to music really not not be et.

1540
01:32:15,760 --> 01:32:19,160
Speaker 1: A comedy channel but not stand up but cultural comedy,

1541
01:32:19,720 --> 01:32:25,320
Speaker 1: condom commercials from Russia and uh, stuff like that. Just bizarreness.

1542
01:32:25,479 --> 01:32:30,800
Speaker 1: It's so bizarre and culturally strange. It's funny and um,

1543
01:32:31,640 --> 01:32:34,479
Speaker 1: a kid's channel, but one aimed sort of a sixty

1544
01:32:34,520 --> 01:32:37,160
Speaker 1: minutes for ten or thirteen year olds. This is where

1545
01:32:37,200 --> 01:32:41,360
Speaker 1: we might take. It's not pop cultures where we might

1546
01:32:41,439 --> 01:32:45,679
Speaker 1: take I don't know, um, pick up pick a record

1547
01:32:46,280 --> 01:32:48,760
Speaker 1: and instead of talking about the red carpet and all that,

1548
01:32:48,920 --> 01:32:52,280
Speaker 1: we deconstructed and talk about the publicity machine and the

1549
01:32:52,360 --> 01:32:54,960
Speaker 1: promotion behind it and all that so be really for

1550
01:32:55,200 --> 01:32:59,120
Speaker 1: a smart uh nine, ten or thirteen or fourteen year olds.

1551
01:32:59,680 --> 01:33:02,280
Speaker 1: Then we have a political channel where everybody's full of ship.

1552
01:33:02,400 --> 01:33:05,800
Speaker 1: We're not right, we're not left, it's just uh. And

1553
01:33:05,920 --> 01:33:09,080
Speaker 1: we would do things like MST three thousand, Mr SADS

1554
01:33:09,080 --> 01:33:14,320
Speaker 1: Theater three thousand type presentations of debates, and it would

1555
01:33:14,360 --> 01:33:17,200
Speaker 1: be uh, we sort of model ourselves after the old

1556
01:33:17,320 --> 01:33:21,800
Speaker 1: National lampoon. And then uh, what's the other channel? Um

1557
01:33:25,000 --> 01:33:27,599
Speaker 1: uh no, I guesaid was it. So anyway, we found

1558
01:33:28,400 --> 01:33:35,680
Speaker 1: an investor and got out of Westport, Connecticut, um and

1559
01:33:35,800 --> 01:33:40,519
Speaker 1: we had the term sheets done, everything done, just they

1560
01:33:40,600 --> 01:33:46,000
Speaker 1: did a year of due diligence and it was really, uh,

1561
01:33:46,520 --> 01:33:50,200
Speaker 1: just ready to go. One day I got a knock

1562
01:33:50,280 --> 01:33:54,639
Speaker 1: on my door at home and it's the FBI. What's

1563
01:33:54,720 --> 01:33:57,439
Speaker 1: this all about? And they said, are you doing business

1564
01:33:57,479 --> 01:34:01,600
Speaker 1: with bart Stock at Signal Lake Media so Adventures? And

1565
01:34:01,680 --> 01:34:05,200
Speaker 1: I said yeah. I said, well don't and they came

1566
01:34:05,240 --> 01:34:07,000
Speaker 1: in and grolled me for forty five minutes and saying,

1567
01:34:07,040 --> 01:34:10,800
Speaker 1: the guys under investigation for fraud, for lying to the

1568
01:34:11,080 --> 01:34:15,720
Speaker 1: SEC in the Justice Department and un to make you know,

1569
01:34:15,720 --> 01:34:17,840
Speaker 1: a long story short. A couple of weeks later and

1570
01:34:17,880 --> 01:34:22,479
Speaker 1: he's indicted and he's going away for forty years. What

1571
01:34:22,640 --> 01:34:25,200
Speaker 1: year is that for you? This is like last year? Okay?

1572
01:34:25,240 --> 01:34:28,040
Speaker 1: So where does that leave you today? Still looking for money?

1573
01:34:28,720 --> 01:34:33,759
Speaker 1: Or are an organization that could get behind something like this? Okay?

1574
01:34:34,360 --> 01:34:41,519
Speaker 1: Any thought of retirement? None? Zero? Okay, Financially you're okay? Yeah, okay,

1575
01:34:41,960 --> 01:34:46,160
Speaker 1: So let's go to news and information. What what does go?

1576
01:34:46,320 --> 01:34:48,439
Speaker 1: What do you think about the newspapers at this point

1577
01:34:48,479 --> 01:34:51,719
Speaker 1: in time? It's really the Washington Post, the New York Times,

1578
01:34:51,760 --> 01:34:53,840
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal, and a lot of papers that

1579
01:34:53,920 --> 01:34:56,839
Speaker 1: are way down the chain. So what would you advise

1580
01:34:57,120 --> 01:34:59,200
Speaker 1: people who own newspapers, whether it be the big guys,

1581
01:34:59,240 --> 01:35:01,599
Speaker 1: a little guys to day. Well, I think they're still uh,

1582
01:35:02,040 --> 01:35:08,559
Speaker 1: still valuable. Uh. Certainly increase their you know, digital presence.

1583
01:35:09,160 --> 01:35:10,960
Speaker 1: But I'd say the same thing I've talked to the

1584
01:35:11,080 --> 01:35:15,120
Speaker 1: Tribune about, modernize your look, make sure the content is

1585
01:35:15,360 --> 01:35:19,519
Speaker 1: exactly in sync with with who your audience is, and

1586
01:35:22,000 --> 01:35:25,200
Speaker 1: do a self audit. Really look at every page, every

1587
01:35:25,280 --> 01:35:27,640
Speaker 1: aspect of the paper, and say how can we do

1588
01:35:27,720 --> 01:35:30,400
Speaker 1: it better and in a more contemporary way. So I'd

1589
01:35:30,400 --> 01:35:33,360
Speaker 1: say you can't just go in there and change the

1590
01:35:33,400 --> 01:35:35,599
Speaker 1: look of it, but really audit the thing from where

1591
01:35:35,680 --> 01:35:41,080
Speaker 1: creative audit and um and uh. I think a lot

1592
01:35:41,160 --> 01:35:43,600
Speaker 1: of changes would come out of that. Okay, but you know,

1593
01:35:44,080 --> 01:35:46,920
Speaker 1: physical papers on life support. So if you have it

1594
01:35:47,000 --> 01:35:48,920
Speaker 1: on the web, what would you change if it's a

1595
01:35:49,000 --> 01:35:55,080
Speaker 1: web page or an app Um, I think I'd make

1596
01:35:55,160 --> 01:35:57,200
Speaker 1: it uh well, some of them are doing a pretty

1597
01:35:57,200 --> 01:35:59,920
Speaker 1: good job of it, but I'd make it more interact

1598
01:36:00,080 --> 01:36:05,519
Speaker 1: of uh and uh, more opportunities to dig deep into

1599
01:36:05,560 --> 01:36:08,640
Speaker 1: a story. You really like, okay, and what do you

1600
01:36:08,720 --> 01:36:11,519
Speaker 1: think about paying for news? You know this week or

1601
01:36:11,640 --> 01:36:14,439
Speaker 1: last week? Zuckerberg says he's gonna have you know, these

1602
01:36:14,520 --> 01:36:17,400
Speaker 1: news taps whatever. What's your view point on all that? Yeah,

1603
01:36:17,439 --> 01:36:20,639
Speaker 1: I think it's uh, it's best free and ad supported,

1604
01:36:22,520 --> 01:36:26,880
Speaker 1: because I don't think people like to pay. Okay. Now,

1605
01:36:27,200 --> 01:36:31,160
Speaker 1: as a cultural critic, you know, it's very different. And

1606
01:36:31,360 --> 01:36:33,799
Speaker 1: we start with music. It used to be in the heyday,

1607
01:36:34,240 --> 01:36:36,800
Speaker 1: if you made it, certainly everybody in the demo would

1608
01:36:36,840 --> 01:36:39,759
Speaker 1: know you, and generally speaking, everybody would know you. Today

1609
01:36:39,800 --> 01:36:42,519
Speaker 1: we have these celebrities around TV shows and a small

1610
01:36:42,720 --> 01:36:45,240
Speaker 1: fragment in the audience even knows who they are. Yeah,

1611
01:36:45,320 --> 01:36:49,120
Speaker 1: it's overkill. So what do you think about that landscape,

1612
01:36:49,520 --> 01:36:53,320
Speaker 1: the celebrity landscape? Yes, I think it's sick. Uh, there's

1613
01:36:53,320 --> 01:36:57,920
Speaker 1: so much celebrity worship. We had a feature on the

1614
01:36:58,040 --> 01:37:02,000
Speaker 1: Touch Vision which would probably have uh on our new channel, Uh,

1615
01:37:02,720 --> 01:37:07,479
Speaker 1: celebrity crimes against humanity, which instead of just embracing these people,

1616
01:37:07,680 --> 01:37:10,920
Speaker 1: really you know, if they're deserve embracing, fine, but if

1617
01:37:10,920 --> 01:37:14,200
Speaker 1: they don't really call them out okay, and then we

1618
01:37:14,320 --> 01:37:18,200
Speaker 1: have a very divided country. What's your view went on that. Politically, Yeah,

1619
01:37:18,400 --> 01:37:21,800
Speaker 1: it's uh, I think it's gonna stay that way for

1620
01:37:21,880 --> 01:37:25,240
Speaker 1: a while. Uh. It is so divided, I mean it's uh,

1621
01:37:25,840 --> 01:37:29,799
Speaker 1: I've really never seen anything like it. Uh. This division

1622
01:37:29,840 --> 01:37:32,920
Speaker 1: has happened in the past, but it's magnified by the

1623
01:37:33,000 --> 01:37:40,559
Speaker 1: Internet and bloggers and and all these different sources. Uh.

1624
01:37:41,600 --> 01:37:44,479
Speaker 1: So I think it's again it's it's been this way,

1625
01:37:44,640 --> 01:37:48,400
Speaker 1: but never this extreme and never so magnified. I mean

1626
01:37:48,640 --> 01:37:54,479
Speaker 1: it's it's unbelievable. People are like un facebooking people because

1627
01:37:54,520 --> 01:37:57,679
Speaker 1: you're a Trump fan or vice versa. Okay, so let's

1628
01:37:57,680 --> 01:38:02,120
Speaker 1: start with the Republicans. If they want to maintain control,

1629
01:38:02,200 --> 01:38:05,880
Speaker 1: what would your advice be to them? The Republicans, I

1630
01:38:05,960 --> 01:38:12,080
Speaker 1: would uh, well, I'd get behind Trump, just rally behind

1631
01:38:12,160 --> 01:38:14,000
Speaker 1: him and get him in there, because I don't think

1632
01:38:14,040 --> 01:38:18,320
Speaker 1: the Democrats putting up anybody. Okay, so let's sum. You're

1633
01:38:18,360 --> 01:38:22,840
Speaker 1: a consultant to the Democrats, what would you tell them? Oh, uh,

1634
01:38:23,560 --> 01:38:26,800
Speaker 1: get off this ultra progressive thing, get back to the

1635
01:38:27,160 --> 01:38:30,920
Speaker 1: middle a little more. I think the you know, I

1636
01:38:30,960 --> 01:38:34,240
Speaker 1: mean there are people who think they're communists, and it's

1637
01:38:34,280 --> 01:38:36,400
Speaker 1: a lot of that self inflicted. So I would definitely

1638
01:38:36,439 --> 01:38:41,640
Speaker 1: get back to the middle and find somebody really powerful.

1639
01:38:42,160 --> 01:38:48,080
Speaker 1: Uh not not ultra progressive and not milk toast, but

1640
01:38:48,160 --> 01:38:50,080
Speaker 1: you know somebody who can stand up there to Trump.

1641
01:38:50,280 --> 01:38:52,640
Speaker 1: And who might that be? I don't know, that's the

1642
01:38:52,680 --> 01:38:54,880
Speaker 1: big Let's assume if Bloomberg ran, do you think he

1643
01:38:54,920 --> 01:38:57,920
Speaker 1: fits that bill? Probably? Yeah, I haven't heard enough of him.

1644
01:38:57,960 --> 01:39:01,439
Speaker 1: I mean just just a really make a final decision,

1645
01:39:01,520 --> 01:39:04,519
Speaker 1: but somebody like that. Okay, Just do you keep up

1646
01:39:04,560 --> 01:39:09,360
Speaker 1: on the new music? New music? Um, I'll tell you what.

1647
01:39:09,479 --> 01:39:14,759
Speaker 1: I'm still learning to love. There's so much old music

1648
01:39:14,840 --> 01:39:17,840
Speaker 1: I've been getting into, like early country music, big band.

1649
01:39:18,479 --> 01:39:21,160
Speaker 1: So I really when I listened to stuff, a lot

1650
01:39:21,200 --> 01:39:25,080
Speaker 1: of just going back and rediscovering or discovering stuff from

1651
01:39:25,120 --> 01:39:29,360
Speaker 1: the past. New music that's very selective again like tool, Uh,

1652
01:39:29,560 --> 01:39:32,160
Speaker 1: just kept hearing so much about it. Check this out.

1653
01:39:33,000 --> 01:39:36,800
Speaker 1: So if you're one of those heritage bands, as they say,

1654
01:39:37,800 --> 01:39:40,320
Speaker 1: what would you advise them to do in terms of recordings?

1655
01:39:40,520 --> 01:39:43,559
Speaker 1: They're all doing well on the road, Yes, I think

1656
01:39:43,600 --> 01:39:47,040
Speaker 1: get back to their their roots. That's a problem I

1657
01:39:47,120 --> 01:39:49,519
Speaker 1: know with Yes, they they lost track of what their

1658
01:39:49,600 --> 01:39:54,880
Speaker 1: roots are and make very push it. Leave take off,

1659
01:39:55,080 --> 01:39:57,880
Speaker 1: take off where you left off and just push it

1660
01:39:57,920 --> 01:40:04,120
Speaker 1: into new directions, um, maintaining your roots and remembering what

1661
01:40:04,280 --> 01:40:07,120
Speaker 1: got you there in the first place. But just i'd

1662
01:40:07,160 --> 01:40:10,240
Speaker 1: love to see like a bad like Paint Floyd take

1663
01:40:10,280 --> 01:40:13,040
Speaker 1: it to the next level, and pretty much every band

1664
01:40:13,400 --> 01:40:15,839
Speaker 1: from that era. So I think it's all about expect

1665
01:40:16,760 --> 01:40:19,559
Speaker 1: that record. How would you market, how would you let

1666
01:40:19,640 --> 01:40:22,200
Speaker 1: people know? I think you just gotta go nuts on

1667
01:40:22,280 --> 01:40:27,680
Speaker 1: the Internet and social media and ideally ideally in a

1668
01:40:27,800 --> 01:40:29,680
Speaker 1: radio would play it, but you can't rely on that.

1669
01:40:30,200 --> 01:40:32,600
Speaker 1: But so you're really much more focused on the information

1670
01:40:32,720 --> 01:40:35,720
Speaker 1: world than the radio or music world right now. Yeah,

1671
01:40:35,800 --> 01:40:38,720
Speaker 1: pretty much. Although I do think if the opportunity existed

1672
01:40:39,320 --> 01:40:41,880
Speaker 1: to really blow up radio in a big way, you know,

1673
01:40:42,400 --> 01:40:44,839
Speaker 1: jump at that. But I don't. I don't see anybody

1674
01:40:44,920 --> 01:40:47,120
Speaker 1: doing that. I mean, I list want to buy one

1675
01:40:47,160 --> 01:40:50,479
Speaker 1: of the groups. But the information again, in version is

1676
01:40:50,520 --> 01:40:52,800
Speaker 1: the new rock and roll in my opinion, I think

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01:40:52,880 --> 01:40:56,479
Speaker 1: that's for a lot of excitement is in video. Even

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01:40:56,560 --> 01:40:58,840
Speaker 1: listening to Lee Abrams, we heard his history in the

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01:40:59,000 --> 01:41:02,080
Speaker 1: radio business, the news business. I think we hit all

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01:41:02,120 --> 01:41:07,200
Speaker 1: the highlights. Anything that we didn't cover. Uh okay, Lee,

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01:41:07,320 --> 01:41:09,920
Speaker 1: thanks so much for doing this. Thank you great. Until

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Speaker 1: next time, it's Bob left se