Borna Velic cut his teeth at his high school and college radio stations before joining the staff at one of the Midwest’s long-standing heritage rock stations, WAPL. In his seven years with Woodward Communications, he became MD of WAPL and has also taken on the MD role at sister Active Rock station WZOR. Furthermore, he handles on-air duties at both stations.
Borna Velic
Borna Velic was bitten by the radio bug while still a high school student in Illinois, where his school had a 250 watt station. “Back in the day when you needed a license to broadcast, my friend’s older brother had one. I thought, ‘That’s cool! I want one!’ So I took the class and got to be on the station,” he explains. From there he went to the University of Illinois and worked at WPGU, and a few years after college he landed the gig at Green Bay’s heritage rocker WAPL. He added MD duties at Active Rock sister station WZOR (Razor) a few years ago, and now handles MD/on-air duties at both stations.
eQB presents excerpts from the July FMQB magazine Rock Up Close with Borna Velic, MD, WAPL/WZOR/Green Bay
“With WAPL, we’re the heritage rocker that’s been around for over 30 years. Razor is a young end, aggressive, in-your-face active rocker for the Disturbed and Slipknots of the world. With five Rock stations in this market, branding is very important, and we do a good job of branding both of these stations. You know exactly what you’re going to get on APL and you know exactly what you’re going to get on Razor when you tune in.”
“A good record sort of works itself. I try to listen to everything that comes through. With doing music for two stations and being on-air at both, it’s tough sometimes. But the best way to work me on a record is to have a good understanding of what our station is about sonically.”
“All of our airstaff has a part in working with the websites so there’s always fresh material. We do a lot of specific contesting that is solely web-driven. Giving people a reason to go back to the website is the most important thing. To me there is nothing more depressing than going to a website and seeing the same stuff that was on there a week ago. We always keep it fresh and put things up there that our listeners care about.”
“Any different way that you can reach a listener is important. Podcasting is important – we always put morning show stuff and band interviews on our websites. We have Twitter and Facebook. You have to stay on top of how people are using technology and what they are using, and then incorporate the radio station to be a part of that.”
“Anybody can see what songs we play and then go play the exact same songs in the same order on the web or on another station, but it’s what we do in between the songs that is compelling to our listeners. People will always tune in to the station that is talking about things that are happening in their backyard. As long as we stay on top of that, FM radio will be fine.”
“I have always tried to have some perspective and understanding of what other departments in the building are doing outside of programming. I’ll try to put myself in the shoes of sales to understand what their expectations are and what pressures they are under, and same goes for the traffic department or any department.”
** QB Content by Mandy Feingold **
