Bruce the Fierce
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![[*]](./images/iconic/default_icon.gif) posted on 1-10-2007 at 10:41 PM |
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Westword: CBS shows 'em Howe
Click here for Roberts' column
Here's Howe
Denver's toughest radio executive talks about (and justifies) past battles and his latest series of ballsy maneuvers.
By Michael Roberts
Westword
Article Published Jan 11, 2007
THE MESSAGE
When discussing his approach to broadcasting, CBS Radio's Don Howe is a model of civility. "I really believe that radio is a competitive medium," he
maintains, "and I feel it's very fair to creatively compete to reach audiences."
In practice, though, Howe's business philosophy is anything but polite. During the past twenty years, no radio executive in Denver has been more
antagonistic -- or more successful.
He ruled Clear Channel Denver's FM properties circa the '90s, and on his watch, stations such as the Fox and KBPI didn't just dominate the rock-radio
landscape; they flat-out destroyed numerous opponents even as they spawned headlines and stoked controversy.
And while he's currently the Denver market manager for CBS Radio, an entity whose ethos is more benign than the one associated with Clear Channel and,
especially, its corporate predecessor, Jacor, Howe retains his jugular-slashing instincts.
For proof, consider the latest tactics he's employed on behalf of KWLI/The Wolf, a country signal that's one of three CBS outlets he oversees; the
others are KIMN-FM/Mix 100 and KOOL-105. Rather than simply declaring his intention to take down KYGO, which has ruled the country demographic for
ages, he hit the outlet where it hurts most -- in its talent pool.
First he snapped up Jonathan Wilde, one-third of KYGO's ultra-popular morning show; Wilde and former colleagues Kelly Ford and Steve "Mudflap" McGrew
had just been named the nation's top major-market radio crew at the 2006 Country Music Awards. Then, to make this assault/insult sting even more, Howe
hired away Tracy Taylor, KYGO's evening yakker. She'll co-host an afternoon show with Wilde that's slated to debut on February 19.
Far from expressing any guilt regarding these events, Howe accuses KYGO of hubris and neglect for not locking Wilde and Taylor into contracts that
would have prevented the very sort of raid he happily conducted. "Imagine the Fox letting Rick Lewis and Michael Floorwax go -- not signing them and
allowing a window to open up that let others talk to them," he says. "To me, that sends the wrong message to your personalities. But the opportunity
was there, and we took it."
The previous phrase succinctly describes how he's conducted his career. In 1983, shortly after graduating from the University of Cincinnati, named for
the city where he was raised, Howe landed a job selling advertising for the local NFL franchise, the Bengals. Unfortunately, the league soon went on
strike, forcing him to peddle a product that wasn't on the field. So he began casting around for alternative employment, and found it at radio
operations in Tampa, Atlanta and, finally, Denver, where he was recruited by Jacor to serve as general sales manager for KOAQ-FM, an
adult-contemporary outlet. There he established a reputation for attention-getting trickery with his launch of Morning Flakes, a new a.m. show
starring Dave Rickards and Abby Bonell. "We hadn't publicly called them Morning Flakes yet, so we created a generic brand of cereal called Morning
Flakes and used an out-of-state ad agency to promote it on competing stations," he recalls.
Inspired though it was, the stunt couldn't save KOAQ, which was transformed into the classic-rocking Fox at the dawn of the next decade. Among the
first tasks for Howe, who'd been promoted to general manager, was to assemble the Fox's morning team, and he came up with the idea of enlisting
Floorwax, a standup comic who guested on the station whenever he toured through Denver. At first Floorwax was partnered with the Fox's program
director, Steve Brill, "who fancied himself a host," Howe notes. "But it failed miserably." A search for new blood turned up Lewis, and after
witnessing the connection between him and Floorwax, Howe sacked Brill because "his focus was in the wrong place." The rest, he says, "is history."
Indeed, Lewis and Floorwax quickly strode to the top of the listenership pile thanks to bawdiness that was fairly new to the Colorado airwaves at the
time, and they're still standing; as the preeminent Denver radio duo of their generation, they turned a failing signal into a perennial powerhouse,
albeit one whose current ratings are softer than usual. By way of thanks, Howe was eventually put in charge of all Jacor's FMs, which came to include
KBPI, KBCO, KTCL and what is currently known as KPTT-FM/The Party. These signals collected the lion's share of FM-radio revenue in Denver during
Howe's stint, partly because of his skill at undermining any station that dared to challenge Jacor's hegemony. "I remember when the Hawk was a
competing classic-rock station in town," Howe says. "They brought the Who in concert, and right as the lights went down at the show, the Fox logo
appeared miraculously over the whole stage." He chuckles while adding, "I don't know how that happened. Things like that always seemed to be happening
to our competitors."
In the meantime, KBPI became known for staffing bad boys who sometimes went one joke over the line. For instance, Stephen Meade, aka Willie B.,
generated oodles of negative press in 2000 after leading off-road-vehicle enthusiasts onto muddy private property said to serve as a habitat for the
rare boreal toad. Howe thinks environmental issues related to this last incident were largely bogus: "To this day, I don't think anyone's seen a
boreal toad up there," he argues. As for whether Jacor (and, later, Clear Channel) only pretended to be upset by such shenanigans, he acknowledges
that "the personalities and the promotions the stations were doing tended to be aggressive, and our culture was to give our people some rope and let
them make some decisions for themselves. But never did we tell them, 'Go in and do something, however bad, and at least we'll get our call letters
into the paper.' "
Poisonous press certainly didn't hurt Howe from a corporate standpoint. The Friday after 9/11, he was elevated to senior vice president for Clear
Channel's West Coast region, which put him in charge of a hundred stations mostly in California, where he moved. The next year, he was put in charge
of Clear Channel Advantage, which he calls "a national cross-platform group whose goal was to aggregate our media properties for larger advertisers."
He held this position for over two years, but although it allowed him to relocate to Denver, the synergies envisioned by Clear Channel never really
developed. Howe's corporate masters offered him other opportunities, but he didn't want to move his family again; he has three sons between 15 and 21.
Frustrated, he actually left the radio biz for six months before being lured back by CBS in June 2005.
In the eighteen months or so since, Howe has resisted the urge to conduct major surgery on the Mix. He feels morning Mixers Dom Testa and Jane London
constitute "one of the best shows I've ever worked with; they're the eyes and ears of women 25-54 in this market. And advertisers love the station,
because it really pulls for them." But KOOL has received a shakeup, with veteran morning hosts J.J. McKay and Rick "The Coach" Marshall getting the
heave-ho last year in favor of the younger-skewing Dan Mitchell, Kenny Campbell and Melanie Garrett. (McKay and Marshall can now be heard online at http://www.JJandtheCoach.com.) Moreover, KOOL has all but eliminated the '50s and early-'60s
fare that once formed the station's spine in order to attract the 54-and-under folks advertisers covet.
As for the other CBS station, it used the Jammin' Oldies format until Howe flipped it to variety-oriented country in December 2005 and dubbed the
result Willie. Over the first nine months or so, "we saw some nice growth," Howe allows. "But ultimately, research showed that the name Willie was too
synonymous with Willie Nelson. Too many people weren't tuning in because they thought all they'd get was a certain seventy-year-old country singer."
Hence he rebranded the outlet as the Wolf, contemporized the music and fired a shot across KYGO's bow by inking Wilde and Taylor. With a major
campaign in the offing, he says, "KYGO is figuring out that not only are we in this for the long haul, but we're going to have a real good shot at
beating them."
If he's right, civility will have nothing to do with it.
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JJMCKAY
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| posted on 1-11-2007 at 04:54 PM |
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Wow. Sounds like Howe is a real Bad Ass. Of course when Rick & I were fired, Howe couldn't even look us in the eyes. And Abrams did all of the
talking.
Glad they decided to cut the richest of listeners, Baby Boomers, from enjoying their Oldies Station. Of course, as a Program Director who has led
EVERY station I programed to #1 in the ratings, this certainly opens up the opportunity to give the Baby Boomers what they want.
Rick & I have our Oldies station, I plan on bringing back my "HotCountryHits.Com" and my Hot A/C "HotHitRadio.Com", not to mention
"TheDenverSportsChannel.Com", and create local Internet Radio Network. (Back in 1998 whenbroadband penetration was around 20% of the USA, my two
Internet Stations were averaging between 7,000 & 8,000 simultaneous listeners m-f 8a-5p. Now with over 60% broadband penetration in the USA, it will
be much easier to hit those numbers.
Grass roots marketing, a product that is actually FUN to listen to, and WI-FI in cars by years end, will give the CBS' & the Clear Channels of the
world yet another attack that they haven't figured out how to program against.
Sorry..I really don't think that a 25 year old with an IPOD and a broadband connection tuned to Internet Radio is actually going to listen to an
Oldies station with no personality and 15 minutes of commercials an hour. Just my thought.
What's that? Radio has a platform called "HD Radio"? Wow, hadn't heard much about that. Must be a secret weapon that the consumer doesn't even know
about yet.
So, if the automobile companies plan on slapping WI-FI into their new models of cars, why would they even think of putting an HD Radio receiver in
them?
The HD Radios are too expensive for the general consumer, and actually, I have been in Best Buy, Circuit City and Walmart and the folks that work
there, when asked about HD Radios, had no idea what I was talking about. BUT, they had heard of Internet Radio. Strange.
The ONLY way for radio to successfully fend off the new generation of competition is to give listeners LOCAL content with personalities that have
something to say. Quit playing "45 minutes of non stop music" or "10 in a row with no talk" when the listeners could care less about that. Of course
radio research shows that they do care about all this music in a row with no talki, but it's all in the way the question is phrased.
I suppose my point is, you can steal all of the talent in the world from the top rated stations, but if you hire them and then tell them to shut up
and play ten in a row with no talk, you're not going to win. The sooner corporate radio figures out a way to entertain the LOCAL listener and quit
hiring $5 an hour kids or save money with voice-tracking using jocks from outside the market, the sooner radio will become more relevent than an
IPOD.
Just my two cents as I look for a company that actually wants to win. I spoke with a station here in town recently that said they were very happy
sitting in 22nd place with a 1-share, because they didn't have to pay a decent wage to those "Air Personalities" who actually entertain the listener
on a local level. Thank God we have station managers like that. They are just handing over the local audience to Internet Radio Stations.
Since 2004, Internet Radio listening has grown, now get this, 203%! Unreal. By 2009, Internet Radio advertising will reach $300 million, according to
a report by Borrell Associates. Another study shows that Internet Radio listenership will grow to 150 million by 2010 and 235.10 million by 2015.
During that same time period, HD radio will reach 18.55 million listeners. Now here is something I really LOVE.
In the past 30 days, 25-44 year olds was the demographic that listened to Internet Radio the MOST! (22%) Followed by 35-44 (21%) and then 45-54 year
olds at 17%.Those demos BLOW away the 12-24 demo, which was only 14%.
That means that terrestrial radio is doing a LOUSY job of giving the money demographics what they want on a daily basis.
(I am sorry this is so long, but the more research I do the more it makes the case that terra radio will soon become obsolete.)
peace out!
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radio303
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| posted on 1-11-2007 at 05:18 PM |
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Mr. Howe is a great broadcaster..... He has the superstar programmer Keith Abrams running the show.... but wait.... KXKL ratings suck... MIX is at an
all-time low... but firing one PD after another at MIX will fix all the problems... and Willie... or Wolf has flown into town and will steal all of
KYGO's advertisers and listeners.
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Boondocker
Administrator
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Location: Longmont
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Mood: Go Tigers! Go Redbirds!
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| posted on 1-13-2007 at 07:03 PM |
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| Quote: | Originally posted by JJMCKAY
Glad they decided to cut the richest of listeners, Baby Boomers, from enjoying their Oldies Station. Of course, as a Program Director who has led
EVERY station I programed to #1 in the ratings, this certainly opens up the opportunity to give the Baby Boomers what they want.peace out!
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Yes, and I hope it's not lost on anyone that more and more stations around the country, both AM and FM, are flipping to the "real" oldies, songs of
the late '50s, '60s and EARLY '70s. Just looking at All Access each day over the past few weeks I've seen at least a half-dozen of them.
A big problem is that today's account execs and music consultants at places such as Paragon are largely in their 20s and 30s and cannot relate to
45-64s. The trick is to show them how much potential income they're losing. THAT they maybe can understand.
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Boondocker
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Registered: 3-10-2003
Location: Longmont
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Mood: Go Tigers! Go Redbirds!
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| posted on 1-13-2007 at 09:29 PM |
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And thanks to Michael Roberts for giving DR.Net -- and JJ -- some love!
http://www.westword.com/blogs/?p=461#more-461
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Tim Dunbar
Junior Member
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Mood: Go Rockies...Go Twins!!!! (Just don't go together.)
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| posted on 1-14-2007 at 09:33 PM |
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So, how does one get a gig on this Internet radio? You know, assuming one was already a local personality but was only getting, say, no more than one
shift a week, at best? Who would one contact? You know, if one were interested in, I don't know, maybe making a living? Just (very) curious.
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Bruce the Fierce
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Registered: 3-11-2003
Location: Chicagoland
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| posted on 1-14-2007 at 10:09 PM |
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I think the "making a living" part is a little ways down the road, Tim, but every new venture has to start somewhere. Send a u2u to JJMCKAY or write
him at jjmckay1216@aol.com
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