Thoughts About My Radio Career (Part 2)

October 2007. I'm in Dayton, Ohio on Hot 102.9, a Rhythmic/Pop station (I say that because we played a lot of Top-40 uptempo dance stuff that should have been on our sister station, Z93). The station is #1 18-34. My show is #1 18-34. I'm thinking life is great (or as great as life can be in Dayton, Ohio, which is another story completely).

Let's back up for a second. From 2004 to 2007 was a most excellent ride. I went from morning show producer, to midday host (yes, they finally gave it to me straight out), to program director and afternoon personality of the new 97.7 WILD-FM (an Urban/Urban AC hybrid that wasn't as weird as it sounds, which is "another" another story), to PD/Afternoons at Hot 102.9 in Dayton. My first program director at Hot 97.7, Tom Calococci (current OM at Beasley Broadcasting and PD of Power 96 in Miami) told me if I didn't become a PD in 5 years he seriously overestimated my talent. Well, I guess he slightly overestimated my talent, because it took me 5 years and 3 months!

So Radio One sells the Dayton cluster to another company (I start getting the shakes when I think about them, so I'm not naming them). Like I said, I'm good… my performance barometers are peaking. I have a 2 year contract with an out clause after one year, so I thought it would be nothing to re-up for the 2nd year. At the same time, my PD colleague at Z93 was sweating bullets. Here he has control of a heritage station with a blowtorch signal, and they are seriously underperforming, fighting for ratings with a 6,000 watt station that couldn't be heard throughout the whole metro.

Our GM asked the whole station to clean their areas by October 31st so new carpet could be put in and walls could be painted. It just so happened that decisions had to be made for both of us at that same point. I cleaned, put stuff in boxes, put other stuff in drawers, filed away CDs on my floor… basically spruced up the place. My colleague however, thinking he was on his way out the door, cleared out his office. If you looked in there, you would have thought nobody worked in that office. He took the platinum records off the walls, his stereo, all his personal belongings… and took them home. Not stashed them away… took them home! Not put them to the side… took them HOME! He knew he was gone.

So after my shift, I went into the general manager's office to, I thought, have a performance review and talk about goals for the next year. When he starts out with, "so you know we're letting you go…," I go into complete shock. "Uh, no, I did NOT know that, are you serious?" Here is the sucky (for want of a stronger word) thing about my contract. Either myself or the company could cancel the contract at the one year point without cause or giving a reason. So when I asked why they were terminating my contract, he said "we're going in a different direction. That's all I need to say." And I couldn't ask any followup questions, because he didn't have to answer them.

But here is the shocker… yes, even more shocking than losing my job. They gave my job to my PD colleague! Oh, and all this happened the same day they fired his entire staff, blew up his station and made it into a "we play anything" formatted station. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not mad at him. He is a great guy from the Dayton area, had a house, wife and kids and had been with Z93 for 10 1/2 years, from intern to PD/Afternoons. But come on! He was an underperforming Top-40 PD. The only thing he knew about current Hip-Hop and R&B was what he heard in the hallways passing by our studio on his way to his office. He did appreciated Hip-Hop and we would vibe on some old school classics, but programming from charts is bound to fail.

And initially, fail it did. What is it the kids say, "Epic Fail?" This was a classic Epic Fail. 1) I don't have access to anything other than the 12+ Arbitron numbers, but the station's ratings dropped from 6.5 to 5.0, which is the lowest numbers in the history of the station. I know this because when I first got to Dayton, I went over and wrote down all the ratings for each daypart over the history of the station. 2) Only 6 months after the GM let me walk (and less than 8 months after he took the job), he was let go. Technically he took another position at another company, but come on. You don't uproot your family after being in your previous market for years, moved to Dayton, and then move again less than 8 months later without something being seriously wrong. I'm not gloating, I'm just saying…

I wanna thank my girl at http://randomramblingsofaradiochick.blogspot.com for giving me incentive to write in my blog again. I realized my story is interesting also, and it is good for me to get it out. Next post I'll write about my year of looking for another radio job, including crazy feedback I got from 2 major market PDs, my frustration with the whole job search process, and my attempt to work for an easy-listening station in Massachusetts!