A lot of my talent will tell you, what are they doing on the other side of the speakers? I talk a lot about you're speaking to somebody who may be driving for DoorDash. Remember that. These are people who are working jobs that luckily we're not working, and it's tough. It's still pretty glamorous on this side.
BRANDwidth on Demand. Rebooting radio with a different take on all radio can be.
Every one of the digital companies, Apple and Amazon, they're all going to create radio, right? Every time the same thing happens. They create radio and then they go, Oh, wow, this is really hard. Nobody's paying attention. And gosh, it's not just like throwing a bunch of songs on a feed. I can't quite figure out why they don't want to listen to our classic rock feed that's so well done because it's all available everywhere.
You gotta do things that touch people's hearts, that they give a crap about.
Now your guides through the mediamorphosis, David Martin, and author of the book, BRANDwidth, media branding coach, Kipper McGee.
Well this time we're joined by a veteran of the broadcast wars with over three decades of broadcast experience. And by the way, almost all of it, a big success. Yeah. As the program director for Hubbard's Classic Rock 100. 7 KSLX in Phoenix, he has been instrumental in driving the station's success, including the successful transition of the Mark and the Leander Paul morning show to Dave and Mahoney show.
Previously, he served as operations manager at Intercom in Madison, overseeing multiple stations, all successful, held key roles as program director of WFYV in Jacksonville. And W O C T in Baltimore, among others is innovative approach and commitment to excellence have earned him numerous awards and nominations, including accolades from the New York festivals, radio awards, Canadian radio awards, so many more. We won't even have time to mention them. We want to welcome David Moore. Hey, David.
Kipper. Glad to be here.
We are glad to have you. So with all the changes and constants that we're going through right now in the industry, what key skills do you think are essential for success, whether on air or in management in today's industry?
You know, things change quickly, more rapidly than ever before in the business. And I think being plugged in, knowing what's going on asking questions. I read a lot. I listen a lot. I want to know what's going on. I think that the industry has never been more challenged at the same time, it's in many ways, never been more interesting. I look back to when I programmed Arrow in Nashville back in the mid nineties and the Arrow format was very rigid, very it was very modal if you will.
And I can remember I did three hours on the air. Scheduled some music, wrote a few promos and whatnot. I was kind of done for the day. You know, it was kind of dull. I don't have days like that. I haven't had days like that the last two decades. Those days are gone. I think that if you're doing it now, if you've been able to succeed now, you're probably pretty good. You've had to keep up. And I work for Hubbard where we have tools and things that, that help.
I mean, you know, we're, we're pretty plugged in. Are you studying the tech survey? Are you studying share of ear? Because man, there's a lot of data there. Are you really digging into your programmer's package? All those kinds of things. You know what I look for in that stuff. I'm looking for threading. I'm looking for, okay, what does it mean? 16 percent of the KSLX audience in the tech survey is engaged with Spotify for an hour or more a week. I don't know what that means, but I do know that.
I find sometimes when I talk to programmers that maybe they're not doing as much of that as they should, what that's worth.
Well, Dave, titles have changed from program director to brand manager to content czar and probably some new ones we haven't even heard of. In reality, how has the role of radio program manager evolved over the past decade? You said there has been some big changes in the last two decades. What changes do you anticipate in the future?
Well, you've got to be super plugged into revenue. You need to be able to work with AEs and sales managers and promotions teams and digital teams to create opportunities that, you know, I look for stuff that the audience is into that we can make money on. For example, on KSLX, there's some sort of special weekend every weekend. That is, you know, it could be something like a block party weekend or whatever, but it might be we do these things called inflation busting winning weekends.
And those are where you went up concert package to three or four concerts at once. So on something like that, for example, one that requires knowing about, Hey, is inflation still a thing? Yeah. It's still a thing. Is that sort of taking something like, Hey, we've got some concert tickets. You know, we give away concert tickets all the time, obviously, so we turn that into something that is a little more than just your standard giveaway.
I think going forward, we compete against our other radio brands, but we're obviously competing against all of the other audio sources that are available. One of the things that is interesting to me today is that every one of the pure plays or every one of the digital companies, Apple and Amazon, they're all going to create radio, right? And every time the same thing happens, they create radio and then they go, Oh, wow, this is really hard. Nobody's paying attention.
And gosh, it's not just like throwing a bunch of songs on a feed. I can't quite figure out why they don't want to listen to our classic rock feed that's so well done because it's all available everywhere. You know, you got to do things that touch people's hearts that they give a crap about. And back in the day, 30 years ago, You can get away with having your music right and doing some promotions and you'll probably be successful.
Right. So speaking of success, what other strategies are you finding successful to engage and retain your audience, especially given the high competition between radio and other?
The first and foremost thing is talent. Um, Bye. You've got to have, it's very challenging. I mean, look in every market, there's probably room for, I mean, here we have the mountain that really doesn't have talent on it. It has guys named Mountain Man Jay, and it does well. And there's generally room. For a non-talent jukeboxy radio station. That's not what we're doing. Or do I think that that's viable for basically more than one or two stations at a market. So here it's the right talent.
That's the secret sauce. You mentioned going from Mark and Neanderthal to Dave and Mahoney. That was when Mark retired you know, Mark and Neanderthal were successful. It felt like the show was in a really good place at that point. We'd worked really hard on it, but you know, Mark was done and we had an opportunity to hire Dave and Mahoney, so we brought in a show that is obviously very different, but also a high level show. Additionally.
Not only is it a good show, but I don't like hiring assholes. And they're not, and they're really good people. They have a great attitude. To give you an example of what kind of people these guys are, they had their one year anniversary recently. And so. They brought in an omelet bar for the AEs because they've made so much money on the AEs selling them into endorsements. Now, I don't know a lot of morning shows that would do something like that.
I'll tell you this, those guys can't get out of the way of endorsements. And the AEs love them. That is how you get successful.
Right.
There's not a bunch of crap going on. That is partially done because, we have Trip Reeb. Trip's a great leader. It's that kind of an operation.
Well, David, you've had more than your share of significant challenges during your career. How have you overcome them? Boiling it all down. What advice can you give folks when they're running into significant challenges and problems?
I'll tell you what I do, and I don't know that this is for everyone. When I get challenged. When I get into a zone of where I feel like I have an insurmountable issue, a problem I'm not coming up with an answer to, I do a couple of things. One is, I mean, I read a lot. I try to read something that says this is how you fix this problem. I've had talents in the past where I just, I couldn't quite figure out how to get through to them.
I didn't feel like I was coaching them or leading them correctly and maybe they just weren't buying into it. I just wasn't getting through. So they seem to have sort of an issue with authority. You know what I mean? By the way, not unusual in someone who's chosen to sit in a little room and play songs and talk themselves in between. And we all, we are doing this for a reason. This, there are other ways to make a living that might be a little more stable.
But in that case, I might go, okay, if this person, maybe they've had a lot of childhood trauma, maybe they don't trust, maybe they've had a lot of crappy programmers and things like that, they have to know that I care about them and that I trust them and stuff like that. The biggest challenges, for example, that I've personally encountered, almost all of them are the same. You've got a radio station that is messed up. And you've got to fix it.
Sometimes you take over a radio station and you're just the latest poor sucker that got stuck with that thing, right? There are brands like that and you got to manage your expectations, but you also have to, you have to live in the real world. What can you do with it? I would say this, I think I'm pretty good at finding ways of solving these things. I think I'm pretty good at identifying. Okay. If we know this and we know this, and we know this. That probably this is true.
And we can proceed in terms of what skills you need to do this job going forward. Look, you need to be plugged into the music. And when I say the music, let me back that up. You need to be plugged into the tribe. You need to understand your people. Here I have three radio stations. I have KSLX, my main station, Classic Rock. That's pretty much what I've done.
I mean, I've scheduled the Joker by Steve Miller on a radio station since 1989 every single day, so, so, so I thank Steve Miller and John Lennon and people like that for my career. So, you've got to be plugged into your audience and here, you know, we have a classic rock, but we also have Alt AC, which. When I took over all day Z, it wasn't in great shape. And I will tell you, I made a couple of really big errors on it that kept it in bad shape for a while.
I think we just figured that out 18 months to two years ago. And that was a challenge. And the part of the challenge there is, to not give up, to not overreact. And to always remember inside thinkers are worrying about minutiae and things that don't really matter.
In programming, you gotta put yourself on the other side of the speakers in, in, in that environment, and from that moment forward, a lot of my talent will tell you, I talk about that all the time, what are they doing on the other side of the speakers? You're speaking to somebody who may be driving from DoorDash. Remember that these are people who are working jobs that luckily we're not working. And it's tough, but still pretty glamorous on this side.
Well, we know that what we do is considered show biz, like you said. It's got to be a balance between the show and the biz. Can you shed some light on how you go about that? Is that like a quarterly planning thing? Is it something you do in the hallways on the fly? How does it work?
I think it's baked into the DNA. Yeah. First of all, you have to have a relationship with your sales manager that's good. It's easy. Bob Weaver is the sales manager for KSLX. He's a great guy. Susan Karas is our director of sales. We have a great relationship. You know, we're all rowing in the same direction. Part of it is a credibility thing, right?
I think that they know that I'm not going to stand in the way of us making revenue provided I can figure out a way to at least have it do no harm, right? You know, I operate on the hippocratic oath first. Okay, we can do that. We can make money on it. It's not going to harm the radio station. I don't know if it's going to work, but you guys think it'll work. And I've once or twice been wrong about something.
So maybe this is another time that I think it won't work and it will, um, maybe once or twice or three times. And so. That's hard if you have a dogmatic sales manager, who's maybe not on the same page, but also, these sales managers, they've been burned by people in this job before too. And there's a lot of us who do this, who maybe are jerks sometimes. And I try not to be, maybe they would say differently, but I try not to be a jerk about it. And I want us to make money. You know what I mean?
There's nothing sadder than being at a commercial radio station And not having many commercials. It's great. If you're in Nielsen for a period of time, ultimately, nobody's going to make any money and nobody's going to be happy. And again, I'm lucky here. I have great AEs, but I have a great sales management team. That's just not the case everywhere. Look, I've been in places where I had a different GM every 18 months, and that's challenging.
One sharp guy, David Moore from Hubbard in Phoenix. Hey, you know, someone we should interview or a topic we should cover? Well, let us know. We welcome your suggestions show@brandwithondemand.com is the email show@brandwithondemand.Com or reach out on social. BRANDwidthplus on Instagram, Facebook and X that's BRAMDwidthPlus P L U S BRANDwidth plus.
And if you're new to the podcast, we are so glad you're here. Welcome... and be sure to hit the follow button wherever you get those podcasts. And please be sure to tell a friend BRANDwidth on Demand wherever they get podcasts. Cause our goal is to assist you in mastering your audio craft.
Coming up, David Moore shares some advice,
Stevie Ray Vaughn, one of a kind. Special. Unique. But what made Stevie so special? It's the fact that he had a sound in his head that he needed to get out, and he couldn't do it by himself. He needed a tool that would connect his creativity so that he could make the sound in his head come out of the speakers. The only tool to make that happen was a 1963 Fender Stratocaster played through a Fender Super Reverb amp. Unbelievable.
As a program director, music director, or consultant, you have a sound in your head too. That can be equally as unique and special. And music master is the tool you need to get that sound from your head through the speakers, plug in, crank up your creativity and blow away the competition. Go to Musicmaster. com today. For more information, Musicmaster.
Imagine having your own prep team working nonstop. A producer picking the best content, a copywriter making every story hit home, and a marketer finding new ways to grow your audience. All while a digital team keeps your feeds fresh with posts, updates, and videos. What if these pros were available 24 7, market exclusive, and affordable for your radio station? Power up your content before the competition does with Radio Content Pro. See the demo in action.
Just scroll down the show notes or visit radio content pro.com/bandwidth.
Listen today, lead tomorrow BRANDwidth On Demand.
We are with Dave Moore today, one of the best and brightest in our business. Dave, what's the one single best piece of advice you've ever gotten?
When I interviewed as an intern at WRIF. When I was in college in Detroit, um, there was a guy named Mark Pasman, who was the assistant program director. And he went on to be a programmer for a while. I told him when I walked in, I said, well, I'm working on the college station and I've got a job as a board op at an AM station in the city in Detroit like Sunday nights, where I run the religious programming and stuff. And now I want to do this internship. And he said, that's really smart.
Cause you should do everything, learn everything you can. About doing this and you'll be employed forever. If you can do that, if you could learn all of the parts of the businesses, you can and continue just say yes, say yes to everything. And so from that internship, I started a career and it worked and he was right. He was absolutely right. The more that you do. The better it was. So that almost literally on day one of my career almost. So I never forgot it.
It's really great advice. Now, what's the best advice you've ever given David?
That's a really tough question. I think the best advice I've given is to fake it until you make it. you don't necessarily have this figured out yet in terms of air talent. So you're pretty rough here. Um, here's what I need you to do. I need you to sound like this person to begin with. Do you hear this?
You hear how Karen D'Alessandro sounds by the way, Kipper, Karen D'Alessandro and I worked together in Detroit and I was told by the assistant program director, you should really sound more like Karen. You know, she sounds happy.
Good advice.
Yeah. So to try to find the parts of your personality that are appealing. So if you're, quick witted let's work with that. Okay. If you are a real music head and you really are into music knowledge or whatever, then let's work with that. So in the case of Karen D'Alessandro, Karen's very energetic. Karen's very positive, very up. We focus on that, you know, work with that. You can't make a cynical person, not cynical. You can't make. An unfunny person. Funny.
I can't coach to woo or charisma but I can coach to taking those things and going, okay let's run with that.
Bring out the best in others. Right?
Yeah, I guess that's, yeah, I guess that's it. I think I'm pretty good at helping people do that. But in terms of advice like that, like the advice that Mark Paman gave me. I'm not coming up with anything that I have that I think has been that profound. It may be because I never stopped talking and I just can't remember because I just talk constantly. So I probably give a lot of advice.
Wow. We can all learn something from David Moore Kipper. Links to KSLX and more all in the show notes. Just scroll down on your phone or find it at brandwithondemand. com.
Our thanks to executive producer, Producer Cindy Huber for getting everything together here and to associate producer Hannah B for booking And coming up next,
I think radio has waited too long to deal with on demand strategies in a significant way. If you don't build out the next generation, then you are sorry, AM radio or your telephone boards. You're just not as important,
We can all learn something from Steve Goldstein, the Amplify Media founder and CEO.
And Steve joins us next.
That's a wrap, Kipper. Connecting with the audience in the moment, that's the topic of this week's One Minute Martinizing. I'm Dave Martin.
And I'm Kipper McGee. May all your BRANDwidth be wide.