After spending most of his career in his native region of New England, OD ventured a little further south to the Keystone State to take on the coveted PD post of legendary heritage CHR WKRZ as of June of 2007. Northeastern, PA and Entercom seem to be agreeing with OD as one can easily witness, “I love KRZ, it’s a great radio station. My reason for coming to work everyday is to do the very best I possibly can to make sure we stay on top.”
Native New Englander Mike “OD” O’Donnell has spent most of career in his home region up until June of 2007, when he accepted the coveted PD post at legendary CHR WKRZ. After cutting his teeth at stations like WXLO/Worcester and WFHN/New Bedford, OD tackled his first major project with start-up WRZE/Cape Cod in 1993. Next stop was the Clear Channel cluster in Portsmouth, NH where he seized the Ops Manager gig in 2001, overseeing multiple properties. He’s currently loving life with Entercom in Northeastern, PA with a dominate CHR station.
eQB presents excerpts from the April FMQB magazine CHR Up Close with Mike “OD” O’Donnell, PD WKRZ
On inheriting a well groomed heritage CHR station like WKRZ…
My first thought was not to screw it up because it was already doing so well. When you take on a station with a great heritage, a great line-up and great ratings, your thought is ‘Wow, I want to come in and do a great job.’ But initially I knew I had to sit back and learn what made the station and the market tick. I wanted to understand why we do what we do, how it happens and why the station does well because of it.
On areas of concern that needed addressing during his first year…
One of the things I changed was to slow down how fast we pull things out of power, permitting us to bang the recurrents a little longer and tolerate the burn factor a little more. My philosophy has always been that a good researched record is a better way to go then putting unfamiliar stuff on which might cause tune out. Another area I wanted to work more with was our digital department in taking 985krz.com and our online efforts to the next level. We wanted to be able to take what was happening on the air and match it hand and hand with our online presence. We really weren’t doing any of that when I got here.
On what he has to learn about WKRZ’s standing in the market…
Its standing is remarkable. I could be walking around with my station jacket on and people come up to me with adulation about the station. It’s amazing how powerful the KRZ brand is in this market. I’ve really learned to appreciate the respect level of our radio station. I never had that experience with any other station before in my career.
On the interplay of using both online research and callout research…
We do utilize both and I use them for different reasons. My online goes out to our VIP Club members so it mainly measures my core P1’s, whereas I’ll have more cume with the stations I share with in my traditional callout. Sometimes they contradict each other and I find it really interesting when that happens. When it comes to research and the really important music categories like powers, power-recurrents and secondaries, I pretty much go by my traditional callout right down the line.
On pre-testing new singles prior to any exposure on the station…
We do a lot of pre-testing of records with our online callout and typically most of the Rock stuff will go to the top while the Rhythm stuff will go to the bottom. When we see exceptions with either genre, it’s significant and we’ll have a stronger feel (one way or the other) about a particular song. Occasionally we’ll see a Rhythm record that will pop to the top right away, and we feel we should put that right on.
On the label reps understanding the fabric of WKRZ…
I found out since I’ve been here that everybody that’s been working this station absolutely loves the station. If they don’t, I haven’t heard about it yet. They know our heritage. They know we’re an institution in Northeast Pennsylvania. The labels know what to expect here and if the record is real, they know we’ll have a long productive run with it.
On occasional disagreements with the reps relative to a misread on certain artists…
It happens. Promotion reps will always throw information at you like Rate-The-Music and cite other stations in their efforts to turn you around on a record you’re not sure is a natural fit and I understand that. It’s their job. But again, there are many artists on a national level that have been very well researched but have never connected with our audience. We see and trust our callout. Some records we’ve hit pretty hard and just never got a read on. I’m sure it’s frustrating to the reps at times but I think they understand and know that eventually we’ll come around when we’re ready for something.
On the record/radio relationship…
To be honest, I really love my relationship with the reps. One thing though, from where I sit and for what our marketplace needs, I feel they move off of tracks a little too fast. We’ll be playing a single from a new artist and it’s just starting to work and hasn’t peaked yet and all of a sudden they are shifting gears to a different single, and for us we’re usually lagging behind a little because of our callout. I know they’re trying to keep up with the stations on the front end of the single, so I kind of get it. But sometimes I honestly feel there were some records that labels could have gotten if they were just a little more patient. It’s not a criticism, just an opinion.
On contrasting the two major radio companies he’s worked for, Clear Channel and his current home Entercom…
The two corporate atmospheres are very different. I loved the days I spent with Clear Channel. It was a great experience. Clear Channel gave me the tools I needed to grow in my profession and my career and I thank them for that. The biggest difference I’ve noticed at Entercom is it doesn’t feel as much as a top-down run company over here. The philosophy of this company is they really want each individual station and each market cluster to do their thing and program for their unique market, and I think that’s great. It was a good switch for me in terms of the pace in that I felt I reached a point where I could nurture the on-air product more.
** QB Content by Fred Deane **
Also in the April Issue:
Q&A: Trey Morgan, APD, WCKI/New Haven
”KC101 has always stayed true to its core, playing hit music targeted to the 18-34 year-old female.”
Hot Shots
Jessie James, Miley Cyrus, Saving Abel, Lady GaGa
