 John Reynolds John Reynolds knew radio was in his future when he began discovering radio stations at age 8. From his self built radio station he constructed in his basement, to gigging at some of the top CHR stations in country, Reynolds has worked alongside some of the format’s top programming minds at stations like Z100/New York,KHKS/Dallas, WKTI/Milwaukee and WZEE/Madison. He currently serves as OM at CBS Radio‘s Mainstream CHR WNKS (Kiss 95.1) and Soft AC WKQC (K104.7) in Charlotte, where his passion and positive outlook on business is refreshing. His understanding of the importance of providing compelling content while embracing radio’s new technology platforms has made the stations he oversees a success in one of radio’s key markets.
e-QB presents excerpts from the FMQB March Magazine CHR Up Close featuring WNKS & WKQC/Charlotte OM John Reynolds
On winning the content war… Content is very important and radio is doing a better job at recognizing how important creating our content is and part of that is a result of having additional options for listeners coming into the market over the past several years. That makes us better at running our radio stations as we continue to look for ways to be compelling as we attract new audience into radio. As the old saying goes, “competition only makes you better” and I believe that radio is responding to the expansion of all these different media options that consumers have available to them today.
On one of Pop music’s best cycles… It always helps when Pop music is on an upswing and it’s great to see that happening right now. For people who love music it’s very exciting. It brings a wider spectrum of options to the table for Top 40 when a Pop cycle is in an upswing because it seems to bring in some other sounds that you normally would have more trouble breaking and getting noticed when the format is leaning in any one particular extreme.
On the future of HD Radio… I think with any new technology there is a learning curve and a growth cycle that it goes through and we just need to continue to cultivate HD Radio and embrace, support and promote it. It’s a great technology that will have its place in an overall digital society. In time there will be many benefits that go along with HD Radio’s capabilities as the percentage of people who have HD Radios continues to grow to a point where we’re much closer to saturation. That’s a process that we need to go through with any new technology but it will have many benefits for us in the long run.
On PPM… As technology continues to evolve and come up with better ways to do things we need to look at any and all options that can help make our stations better. To have more resources available that show the strength of radio and what radio is capable of is a good thing. The more we can provide that accurate information and have better data to back it up, the better it will be for us with advertisers.
On CBS head Dan Mason leadership… I am seeing a lot more focus on providing content by using all of our assets both digital and terrestrial to develop on air programs. Program Directors are being encouraged to create and share ideas within the company. The power of all the programming minds and talent we have in CBS Radio is just fantastic and you are seeing a lot of that encouragement to work together and develop creative ideas and projects.
On what should radio focus most on in 2008 to ensure it remains as the go-to media… We need to continue to better market ourselves as radio and why radio is great. It has always been great, as an accessible medium, and it’s free! We need to do a better job at promoting why radio is still the largest used medium in the world. Charlotte has an average commute time of 90 minutes and when you are sitting in your car and you can’t get on Yahoo! and Google or start surfing or accessing the web, it’s about radio. It’s still about that one on one intimacy that radio will always have with our listeners and we need to focus on continuing to promote that advantage and benefit of what makes radio great.
**QB Content by Bob Burke**
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