Chris Edge spent most of his career in Top 40, before making the unusual transition to Triple A when he moved to Austin program format egend KGSR and Classic Rock KLBJ. Edge eventually added Director of Digital Media for the entire Emmis Austin cluster to his title, but now is returning to Raleigh – where he had been PD of WDCG – as OM of the entire Clear Channel cluster there. In this exclusive FMQB interview, Edge talks about how digital impacts the brand, as well as his impending return to the market he thinks of as home and his excitement to lead a powerful cluster of stations to new heights.
Chris Edge
Starting his professional career in Hartford in 1990, Chris Edge spent most of his time in Top 40, starting at WKSS/Hartford before logging nine years working his way up from overnights to PD at WDCG/Raleigh. But it was while programming WNOU/Indianapolis that the opportunity came to move to Austin to program Triple A legend KGSR and Classic Rock KLBJ. Figuring “the science of radio is the same,” regardless of format, Edge took the plunge and headed south, eventually adding Director of Digital Media for the entire Emmis Austin cluster to his title. Five years later, the chance to return to Raleigh presented itself, with Edge snagging the OM job for the Clear Channel Media & Entertainment cluster, which includes his old radio home, WDCG, along with Rhythmic Top 40 WKSL, Talk WRDU and Classic Hits WRVA.
As he was getting ready to pack up his family and move back to Raleigh, Edge talked with FMQB about how digital impacts the brand no matter the format, as well as his impending return to the market he thinks of as home and his excitement to lead a powerful cluster of stations to new heights.
You entered the business not out of music passion, but because you had a passion for radio. What captivated you about radio growing up?
I would say I’ve never had that said to me, but that actually sounds accurate. Yes, I did not get into radio because I loved music. I mean I did love music, but I remember the driver being that I wanted to be on the air. I wanted to be a deejay. I was less concerned with what I was playing. I just wanted to be a deejay.
What compelled you most about being on the air?
Man, I don’t know. I was in high school and I was taking a film class, and there was a guy who was in it who was hiring people for these weekend shifts at a small AM station back in Holyoke, MA, WREB. He needed someone to fill in, and run the French show,and I said yes to make some money. I didn’t do it because I wanted to do radio at the time or because I wanted to be a deejay. But part of that experience was I had to do an hour-and-a-half slot on Sunday afternoons and I could do whatever I wanted. At one point I was bringing in my cassettes and singles and whatnot and playing music. I played whatever I wanted, but at one point I tried doing a Sports Talk show with a buddy of mine. However we didn’t know s*** about sports and it was really awful, but we got to be on the air, and were putting together what we thought was a show. That was the beginning of, “I kind of like this thing!” We filled in on weekends, like a Memorial Day weekend when all of us part-timers filled in because the News people were all off. Then we were doing things like big giant blocks of playing music. I was picking songs and making sweepers, so that part was a lot of fun. That was probably the beginning.
When you were bringing in your own records what were you bringing in?
I probably bought most of it. I’d have to go to the record store and buy 45s, and it was a mix of stuff I knew as a kid, and stuff that was meaningful to me at the time, and most of that music was coming from the Pop world. I remember having 45s of Paula Abdul, Phil Collins, Eric Clapton; Don Henley’s album End Of The Innocence was out at that time. It really wasn’t a music station, so in the beginning we thought we could only play the records then I figured out how to jury-rig the cassette deck into the board so you could cue up songs off an album and play them.
What triggered that “this is what I want to do for the rest of my life” bug?
I guess because you were in charge of it. It was your hour-and-a-half and you had to figure it out. On a much larger scale, that’s what you do as a Program Director, except that it’s a 24-hours a day, seven days a week. I had this hour and a half slot, and had to figure out what I was going to do. I remember deciding to be selective about the songs that I played. I also remember playing Don McLean’s “American Pie” on 45, and the B-side was the rest of the song, and I literally thought about “how am I going to flip this song fast enough?” So I flipped it over, cued up the other side and played it. And I did it! There were 10 or 15 seconds of dead air or so, but I played it. I liked doing all of that, and doing that Sports show; we were planning out topics, writing copy for promos we wanted to run during the show. It was structured and I probably like that. I originally wanted to do film. I was interested in being a director, but radio derailed all of that.
Let’s skip to 2008 when you took over the Digital Media role for Emmis in Austin. That was when digital was just getting a foothold.
I came into program KGSR and KLBJ, and did that for a year. Then the digital sales manager was leaving and they came to me and said there’s this other opportunity. At the time there weren’t any real systems in place, it was difficult to do digital business because software didn’t talk to each other. Salespeople were still learning, and the language was new and so for me it was never a sales job. I was never actually selling. I was the motivator, the trainer, educating all the salespeople and making it easy for them; changing the vocabulary and putting in a paperless system for putting orders together, stuff like that. The desire was there and the technology was there and moving faster. I was trying to sync those two things together. There were people who wanted to get it, and there was stuff we wanted them to sell, it was just a matter of breaking down the walls and getting people selling.
When you came back to the programming side, how did that inform your approach to programming?
I don’t know that it did influence how the station was programmed and managed. What it did influence was how we did things online; where we put our content, based on knowing a lot more about the metrics of the website. I knew what people were clicking on and how valuable certain pieces of real estate were within the site. Also, I was looking at what we were doing on the air and how we would get what was worthy online. I wanted everything – on-air and online – to be the same. It’s a brand and all these different things are more ways people can get to you. Knowing a lot more about what really moves the needle on a website helped me program the website better and kept it a lot more in sync with what we were doing on the air.
Can you elaborate on that process?
It definitely took awhile, but we used to have all these bands come in and do performances on-air and maybe someone from the promotions department would come in, snap some pictures and put them on the website and we’d be okay. Now it’s gotten to the point where we have a full-time videographer and photographer in-house now, so every time a band comes in, it’s a full-on experience. It’s multi-camera, there are photos and we get all that content up and part of the home page and sometimes we stream the performances as they happen. You’re website can no longer be a “brochure.” It has to be you selling yourself and giving listeners a chance to experience your brand online.
The other thing that’s happened in the last couple of years is the speed you need to turn that stuff around. Social Media is making things happen right away. It’s been a process for us as we try to catch up with the outside world with the process of how we turn that stuff around into web content. The audience expects it to be immediate now.
Are there Digital Media opportunities that may not be obvious to someone not working in that area full-time?
One thing ipeople really need to pay attention to is the metrics. When you realize how large those numbers are – especially streaming where KGSR has about 18,000 people streaming a month – you have to pay a lot more attention to that. Now there’s Facebook. We have 13,000 people there, so we have to be able to drive them back to the site or the radio station. And you do this by making sure everything you do on-air you do in Digital and Social media. You must realize there are people that are experiencing your brand not through the radio station, but through other forms of media.
How did the return to Raleigh come about?
I knew Chris was leaving and I asked Emmis if it would be okay to send (Clear Channel) some materials and they were okay with it, so I did. A lot of it was based on it was a chance for us to get back home. That’s where my wife and I met, we had our kids there and she was from there originally. So it was a “perfect storm,” in that it’s a great gig, good company, great cluster and good people in a town we’ve wanted to call home for a long time.
Professionally, what excites you about returning to Raleigh?
It’s totally different; it’s a completely different set of radio stations. The only station that was there during my previous stint was Top 40 G105, and the rest of them – the Classic Rock, Talk and Rhythmic Top 40 stations – did not exist then, so it’s a completely different setup. I’ve got some experience with the Top 40 and programmed Classic Rock for the first year or two I was in Austin, so it’s going to be fun! It’s a lot more responsibility. When I was there before I was programming one radio station, and this time there are four different, unique brands that need some help in some degree, and I’m going to help take these stations to the next level.
What opportunities do you see for these stations?
It’s too early to say. I’ve spent a lot of time listening, but I haven’t had the chance to see any of the ratings or see any of the different demos that are there and where the stations are performing and not performing. I’ve got to get into that building and take some time and listen to people and listen to the radio stations and look at the ratings, etc., and see if there are places for growth.
After a number of years in Triple A and the Digital Media role in Austin, do you anticipate any difficulties transitioning back into Top 40?
Hits are hits and you can hear them when you’re in any format. You just have to re-tune your ears. Triple A delivery – especially from talent – is very, very different from the talent of Top 40. You have to go back and immerse yourself in whatever your product or your brand is. Between now and when this actually happens it will be a lot of asking questions, looking under rocks and rediscovering what the Top 40 format – and the other formats – are again.
Is there anything you learned in Triple A that you can apply or are these really very different animals?
I’ll be a lot more patient. I’ve learned that over the last five years. There’s not a rush to achieve certain goals. You’ve just got to come in there and be smart about it, and not rush to get to whatever it is you’re trying to do. Triple A definitely slowed me down, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. You really had to take your time and figure out what the right moves were going forward.
I recently heard someone speaking to a group of programmers say that radio really is going to be dead in the next few years. Thoughts?
That’s what “music heads” would like us to believe because they’re spending all their time on Pandora and Spotify. But the reality is that 80 percent of the people want to be told what they’re supposed to like, and that’s what radio does. We’re gonna be fine.
[eQB Content By Jack Barton]
