John Ivey has amassed quite a successful track record over his storied 20-year programming career. Having piloted two of the strongest CHR brands in the business to great heights in WXKS/Boston and his current franchise KIIS/LA, Ivey’s developed a winning tradition by integrating solid fundamentals with a penchant for forward thinking ideas.
John Ivey
From his early programming days in Omaha, the Quad Cities and Rochester to his career defining stints at two of the most influential heritage CHR stations in the country (WXKS/Boston and KIIS/Los Angeles) there was a reason why Ivey was voted one of the Top 5 programmers of all time earning him FMQB Hall of Fame honors last year. It’s called consistency. When it comes to values, work ethic and dedication to his craft, few do it better than John, and the industry continues to recognize his efforts as evidenced by the results in our Year-End 2008 Leaders poll where John and KIIS were voted best in their respective CHR categories.
He arrived at KIIS in August of 2001 and although his tenure this decade has been somewhat of a roller coaster ride, his mission remained clear: make the necessary changes needed to keep one of LA’s strongest brands on top, never stop raising the bar and always stay ahead of the curve.
On the biggest differences in his job today versus his early days in programming…
Most of the changes relate to technology and doing your job better and faster. During my early programming days in the mid-to-late eighties I started gravitating to technology changes. You begin to develop a mindset that if technology can help you do things better than your competition or the industry in general, you’d be ahead of the curve and it would somehow give you an advantage.
On the disadvantages of technology where there’s misuse…
The most glaring one is taking research too literally. Less-seasoned PD’s look at a research project and take the first five songs and instantly make them the powers and don’t put any gut into it. You need to realize if you were to do the same research the next day it might be a swing in another direction. You need to remember when interpreting research that there are built in variability factors that are always going to occur. You can’t make long term decisions based solely on single results.
On why today’s generation of PD’s overly rely on research…
There’s been a breakdown of the mentoring system. There are far fewer people getting into the business and there are fewer mentors. So we’ve become a business where people have to get good quickly because of the rapid pace. When I first got into the business people stayed around for awhile. Today a guy gets into the business and two years later he’s moved up three market sizes because a company has a limited amount of candidates. I see guys who are rapidly ascending before they’re ready. It took me 35 years to get here. I didn’t just wake up one day in LA.
On his initial goals when he took over KIIS in August of 2001…
KIIS at the time was fairly mainstream, but it was losing momentum because the Britney/*NSYNCdays were winding down and mainstream Pop was faltering. Meanwhile Urban and Hip-Hop were coming on quickly. So before I could really get my bearings, Power106 (KPWR) had moved ahead of us for the first time. It was virtually within months of my arrival and KIIS was on the decline.
On progress in the first couple of years…
I spent my first couple of years just trying to figure it out. You need that time to get things straight. Sometimes when I see programmers move around so quickly, it’s beyond me. You really have to give yourself time, especially in major markets. You can’t properly change things quickly if it’s a station rebuild. The company has to be committed and give the PD time to learn the market and get the plan organized. The pay off comes down the road. You have to think long term. Short term thinking is how you get yourself in trouble time and time again.
John Ivey & Ryan Seacrest
On the decision to place Ryan Seacrest in mornings at KIIS…
It was five years ago this month and it was a major step for KIIS. When I got here in August of 2001, by December of that year I was given KYSR (Star) to program as well. Within a few months I began working with the Star staff, including Ryan Seacrest. During one of our first meetings I found out Ryan’s goal was to do mornings. He was doing an afternoon show that sounded like a morning show and was doing pretty well. But it was a lot of talk and not a lot of music, and it wasn’t quite what I had in mind for that day-part. I preferred he play more music and eventually we got that accomplished.
On sharing Seacrest with major network TV…
All of our guys in the cluster have TV opportunities. There’s always that possibility in Hollywood.
So when Ryan came in telling us about an audition for American Idol, we were fine with it. He told us it wouldn’t interfere with his air-shift, which is a big laugh in retrospect because it is so time consuming. I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to miss a lot of work. Anything he did on his time that would make him bigger, I was all for. I’m always for growth and ambition for the people we work with. None of us would ever have dreamt that it would turn out to be as big as it did.
On concern over losing Seacrest in favor of a TV and possibly film career…
Of course everything’s crossed my mind. But if you know Ryan like I know him, the guy really loves radio. When a weekly or monthly ratings report comes out he wants to know what’s going on. When the book comes out, he wants to go over it page by page. We talk or email everyday about the show. He’s as involved with his radio show as anyone could be.
On the qualities of KIIS that have led to its commanding longevity and brand power over time…
Primarily it’s staying in touch with the listeners and the times, and evolving the station accordingly. Just because you’re winning you can’t feel like you don’t have to tweak it. You’re constantly tinkering and evolving it and making sure you get to the next levels. KISS 108/Boston and Z100/New York are the same way. As you go through incarnations of great stations you look back at the staffs and thedifferent promotional activities, and typically with these types of stations these areas are a common denominator to success. You’re always going to keep the bar high and hire strong people to run it and staff it.
On his biggest pet peeve when it comes to evaluating jocks to fit the persona of KIIS…
The station’s never been dirty or filthy in its content. That doesn’t work here. With a lot of air-checks we get from people who would like to work at KIIS, the first four or five breaks are the absolute filthiest breaks I’ve ever heard in my life! I wonder if they’ve ever listened to KIIS online, because they’d know that this is exactly the opposite of what we do. Bottom line is we’re not filthy.
On the affect on programming philosophy being in a PPM market…
I can’t say we’ve had major changes. We had always tried to incorporate the things that ended up working with People Meter. We know that appointment listening is important. We’ve always done appointment listening on KIIS. Some folks who didn’t consider that are probably playing catch up. My philosophy was more to see what the station looked like when PPM came out and see if I needed to make changes.
On audience trends detected with PPM measurement…
Some formats where the listeners were inclined to write down huge TSL patterns are not realistic, but many of us had already figured that out and were just waiting for a ratings method that proved it.Everybody’s figured out that people actually listen in shorter spurts. It’s something programmers have been preaching to jocks forever.
On the partnership between radio and the music industry…
Today more and more, record companies are looking at projects and thinking, how do we do this without radio? I don’t think that’s a great idea. It’s a little insulting at times when a Top 40 artist that Top 40 radio has really embraced releases a new project and radio’s not considered as the first point of exposure. It’s getting to the point where many of the new releases from brand artists are introduced on the Internet and radio gets no consideration. That’s not a good partnership.
On the job radio does in breaking new artists…
We do it all the time. I can go down the list from last year alone who have become major artists likeKaty Perry and Leona Lewis. I know it seems like we’re never doing enough, but it always come down to the quality of the song. You’re not going to go four singles deep with an artist when they only have one hit. It’s all about playing hit songs. When labels ask why we don’t develop more artists, well we have, like Britney Spears, Beyonce, Rihanna and Kanye West. You can’t forget about the hit artists today that were new artists a few years ago.
On advice to the music biz regarding its approach to the consumer marketplace…
The rules have drastically changed. They have to be constantly aware of price point and ease of availability. Consumers still want music but people are more experimental when it’s more affordable. At least digital downloads are going in the right direction for the labels. You see labels selling hundreds of thousands of digital singles. I know it’s not making the labels a ton of money and it’s not replacing the sales lost from CD’s, but it’s were the consumer model has drifted. The passion for music will always be there. The model has been radically changed, but it’s now all about acceptance, adjusting the way you do business, revaluating end-goal expectations and to continue to find and sign great artists.
** QB Content by Fred Deane **
