Lynn Barstow
One FMQB career achievement award and one promotion later, 2008 has turned out to be a pretty banner year for KROX’s Lynn Barstow. We dialed up Lynn on Day One of his new gig as KROX/KGSR PD to get the initial impressions of his newfound dual PD role and how things have evolved since his arrival in the building three-and-a-half years ago…
e-QB presents excerpts from the July FMQB magazine Modern Rock Up Close with KROX-KGSR/Austin PD Lynn Barstow
On how KROX has evolved during his tenure there…
There’s been a real effort to embrace the hipster elements of the local music scene, and to upscale the radio station a little bit. Not that anyone’s going to confuse us with college radio or even something as eclectic as KNRK, but we’re at least offering a nod to Austin’s progressive music heritage. That said, for all of its self-touting as being a hipster center, you don’t have to venture far from the city-proper before you’re in the same Texas that the Dallas and Houston alt-rock stations serve. So, we have to tread carefully in making Vampire Weekend and MGMT work alongside titles from Seether and Breaking Benjamin.
On early adopters in the market…
Early adopters in Austin are still using radio even though they live in one of the most wired cities in America. Austinites spend an inordinate amount of time in their cars, considering our relatively modest market rank. The market’s kind of expansive, the infrastructure was built for a smaller city, and there’s no mass transit to speak of—which all adds up to horrible traffic. So, even the early-adopters are spending enough time in their cars to reach for their radio sometimes.
On being named PD at Triple A KGSR…
I’ve been trying to work for KGSR now for the better part of 15, 16 years. I interviewed for a morning show slot circa 1992. They were doing some really cool things back in the beginning of the ’90s, and I always wanted to be a part of it. My musical tastes are in the roots music and singer/songwriter worlds as much as they are in the Alternative Rock world. I’m a Texan, so I’m kind of okay with a little bit of Progressive Country as well, and that’s part of the cocktail over there. So, musically it is right up my alley. It’s fun to have a foot in each of those worlds.
On his day-to-day…
We’re going to see who comes in to take the midday position that I’m vacating. If someone comes to the table who has programming chops, it may change the way things are allocated. If we bring in a talent that doesn’t have those programming chops, I’d be pretty comfortable moving forward with the people we have in-house doing things as we have been. I’ve got a big chunk of my day freed up with the airshift no longer on the daily agenda
On being a program director in 2008…
These early adopters that we talked about earlier aren’t going to leave new technology to go solely back to “primitive old radio.” They’re going to use old and new technologies together, and we have to find a way to make ourselves relevant in the face of a hell of a lot of options that they have. We need to be positioned to be their buddies who turn them on to new things and entertain them between the songs. Also, with pretty significant changes ahead in audience measurement, programmers are having to do some poking and examining and trying to figure out how best to operate in a PPM world, which for us is 18 months away at this point.
** QB Content by Mike Bacon **
Also in the July Issue:
Radio Stations Get Gott
GottGame.com Editor in Chief and Radio Host, Steve Masters
As one of the forerunners of the Modern Rock format, Live 105/San Francisco trailblazer Steve Masters approached music and radio as an out-of-the-box thinker. Fast forward to today and that same passion that propelled him through the format’s earliest years is hurling him through a newer, massively consumed medium – video gaming. We caught up with Steve recently and asked about his hottest new venture, GottGame Radio.
