It’s safe to say that when Tracy Austin assumed the programming reins at Q102 in Philly, she was more than well prepared. Aside from running her own show at WKSS/Hartford, KRBE/Houston and NOVA 106.9 in Brisbane Australia, she served as the understudy to some fairly accomplished PDs during her five year stint at KIIS/Los Angeles. Now her focus is Philly and there’s lots to do.
Tracy Austin
Tracy Austin began her career in Austin Texas at KHFI, in 1986. From that point forward it’s been a whirlwind tour of duty both domestically and overseas. Her stateside gigs included programming WKSS/Hartford and KRBE/Houston, as well as an APD/MD stint at KIIS/Los Angeles where in five years she served under Jeff Wyatt, Steve Perun, John Cook and (the late) Dan Kiely. But the most fascinating venture of all professionally and culturally may have been her experience as PD at NOVA 106.9 in Brisbane, Australia.
In September 2008, Tracy claimed the PD post at Q102 in Philly and found herself in the middle of a newly acquired syndicated morning show, a realigned air-staff, booking a Jingle Ball event and a subsequent repositioning of the music mix, and judging by the latest PPM report card things are looking up. In the May PPM, Q102 was #1 Women 18-34, #1 Persons 18-34 in afternoon drive and nights, #1 Women 18-34 in mid-days, as the morning show leaped sixth to third among Women 18-34.
eQB presents excerpts from the July FMQB magazine CHR Up Close with WIOQ (Q102)/Philadelphia PD Tracy Austin
“Working in Australia was a real education regarding my management style because it wasn’t easy adapting to some very strong on-air personalities who didn’t know anything about me or my experience in America, but who knew the Aussie culture and mentality much better than I did. I really had a chance to ‘harden up’ and in time we found ourselves hitting a point of mutual respect where they were helping me with the culture and I was making impact on them with my radio experience.”
“When I initially listened to Q102 and the market, I felt there wasn’t a lot of differentiation between us and Wired 96.5, our chief competitor in the 18-34 arena. There also was a lot of bitter history between the stations, and their current morning guy Chio used to work at Q. It’s been a long battle and Wired took the rug out from under Q years ago when it started emphasizing Rhythmic music and it appeared that Q followed their lead.”
“Q needed a more distinct identity in the market. It makes sense to own THE HITS. We haven’t lost that identity. I simply wanted to reinforce that identity and in order to do that, we have to really play hit music, and there is so much great stuff out there right now.”
“It was very apparent to me that Q102 was a huge name in the market when I arrived. It just had some holes shot in its side in the past decade. I believe by re-introducing a balance in the music mix, owning hit music once again, showcasing the variety and doing things with the right artists have gone a long way to restore a lot of what may have been lost over the years.”
“I believe in the long run that Elvis Duran in mornings is the right way to go. You might not ‘get it’ right away but once you do you’re really hooked. It’s a really strong ensemble show with a terrific team behind the scenes as well. The show also provides incredible web content. Elvis being here in the mornings was definitely a part of the attraction for me to come to Philly.”
“With PPM, it’s really easy to panic or overreact either way if the numbers are good or bad in a given week because you’re getting them every week. It’s more productive to look for big trends over longer periods of time. If you have a problem for over two weeks than you probably need to look at it closely and see if there’s any tweaking that needs to be done, and that’s a real advantage for having it.”
“Regarding our relationship with the label community, I look for mutual respect: we want to play hits, they want to make hits. I would hope too that if we do step out on something and when we feel we’ve had a good run with it and are ready to move on we hope they respect that, because so often our schedule is not the same as a chart schedule or their plan.”
“In general I think labels would be better served if they would coordinate their lines of communication to stations. If your local rep knows they talk to Joey Brooks, and you know you talk to me, then that’s enough. We don’t need other calls from any other people on that record because at times there are too many people calling about the same record and that’s a little irritating.”
** QB Content by Fred Deane **
Also in the FMQB July Magazine:
Q&A: Kevin Scott, PD, WXLK/Roanoke
”Playing the hits for your market and having compelling content is the winning formula no matter where you are.”
Hot Shots
Jessie James, David Guetta, Tinted Windows, Kevin Rudolf, Evan Taubenfeld
Hot Shots Extra
In The Studio with Shakira
