Dom Theodore President / RadioAnimal Media Strategies
July 15, 2022
by Fred Deane
Dom Theodore
Dom Theodore is a problem solver and relies on a rebellious attitude to help render solutions. He remains flexible as well in his approach but doesn’t shy away from drastic radical solutions. Our industry has always had a segment of programmers who would defy conventional thinking, go against the grain, and ride this mindset to a wave of success.
Dom dubs this philosophy and the programmers who have subscribed to it as “The Crazy Ones.” To further underscore this attitude, Dom made a dedication to our interview session that seems to resonate throughout the piece: “Here’s to the Crazy Ones.”
No one can reflect on this overall philosophy and its impact on our industry better than Dom…observe how his story unfolds…
You adopted a “rebel” attitude early on and it has endured throughout your career. What led you to this approach to radio?
From my earliest days in the industry, I looked up to the rebel and renegade programmers and operators with the same awe and admiration that other kids had for their favorite athletes. Programmers like Randy Michaels, Jerry Clifton, Bill Tanner, Scott Shannon, Bill Drake, Ron Jacobs, and others, challenged conventional wisdom at the time and were always looking for what wasn’t being done, or a way to do something differently.
Leaders like this paved the way for innovation in our industry, and many of the successful programming strategies we take for granted today originated with these programmers and programmers like them.
Can you elaborate on this counterintuitive philosophy?
It seems as long as radio has been a medium, there’s always been somebody waiting in the wings wondering, “Why do they do it that way?”
I remember asking this question back in the late 80’s when I was working in the research department at WHYT in Detroit while I was in high school. Let’s pause for a moment and acknowledge that a CHR station had its own in-house research department back then, and phone operators who were paid to answer request lines. Quite the investment for Capital Cities/ABC, but a very valuable experience for me. And WHYT wasn’t just any station, the PD was Rick Gillette and the consultant was Jerry Clifton…both rebels.
WHYT in that era had developed its own “popular culture.” The tastemakers listened to 96.3. What Steve Jobs did to computers years later, WHYT did to radio. Like the Apple logo on the front of the laptop, listening to this station said something about YOU. While most CHR’s at the time were playing a heavy dose of safe, guitar driven hits, WHYT played the Rhythmic hits that all the people my age were listening to, but nobody else seemed to play at the time. Songs like “Tic Tac Toe” by Kyper, and “Me, Myself, and I” by De La Soul weren’t played on the other Top 40’s in the market. It was the start of a trend that would continue through most of the 90’s, and WHYT caught it early.
As a kid from a working-class neighborhood on 8-Mile who dreamed big radio dreams, this moment in time at WHYT was like a grad-level programming course on what was about to come, and many of the lessons I learned then still serve me well today.
How important was it back then, and even now, to recognize and act on cultural changes that occur from time to time?
CHR was in the middle of significant cultural shift in the early 90’s, and I had become one of the “rebels” without even knowing it at the time.
For most of the 80’s, Pop music was somewhat cohesive and it was easy to achieve success in both the 18-34 and 25-54 demos by just playing the hits. But by the early 90’s, there was a divide brewing in the format. On one side, you had stations that were vigorously defending the 25-54 position by playing adult-leaning hits like “Time, Love, and Tenderness” by Michael Bolton, and “Baby, Baby” by Amy Grant, while on the other side you had the “rebel” stations that defended the core 18-34 CHR demo by playing Rhythmic songs like I mentioned earlier, and in fact it had become even edgier with big hits from Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, and Salt-N-Pepa, among others.
I was squarely in the second camp and would advocate strongly for these titles in my early programming roles in Saginaw, MI. One of my favorite stations at the time was B96 in Chicago under PD Dave Shakes (another rebel). In addition to the rhythmic hits that some of the others played, B96 had a unique Chicago flavor, with the inclusion of several dance titles. Songs like “Dangerous on the Dance Floor” from Musto and Bones, and “Yolanda” from Reality were Chicago hits that emerged from the clubs. Stations like WHYT, B96, Q102 in Philly, WPGC, Power 96 in Miami, and WFLZ “The Power Pig,” were crafting very unique sounds at the time, each with a distinct flavor reflecting their market’s nuances, and all of them took creative risks.
Ultimately, what the rebels started became mainstream, and today we have several successful classic Hip-Hop stations, but few really understand or appreciate how innovative it was to play many of those songs when they were new.
How much further was this attitude reinforced given your time spent at The Power Pig?
If WHYT was the masters level course, my time at WFLZ in Tampa was where I earned my “PhD in rebel.”
At the time, WFLZ was owned by Jacor Broadcasting, a company that prided itself on being a home for rebels. We wore it like a badge of honor. On a personal level, many of my best friends in life came from my time there, and on a professional level, this station was where I was allowed to really spread my wings.
Our CEO, Randy Michaels, was clear that he wanted Jacor stations to be creative environments where creative people can perform creatively. It’s one thing to say that, but it’s another thing to really mean it. If the lawyers would frown on it, Randy would tell them, “We pay you to figure how we can do what we want to do, not to tell us no.”
Who influenced you the most during your time spent at the Power Pig?
Randy raised a whole generation of rebels and risk-takers and has been one of the most influential mentors in my career. I had several other awesome “rebel” mentors during my time at Jacor, including Jeff Kapugi, Marc Chase, and my GM Dave Reinhart who was like a second father to me, but the ultra-rebel who really pushed me was BJ Harris.
BJ is one of the most creative people I’ve ever met, and we hit it off immediately. Risk-taking was built into his personality, and he gave me some of the best advice I ever received. He said, “Your gut is right 99% of the time, and those are pretty good odds.”
He taught me how to look at data and apply gut instinct, then act on the combination of the two. He challenged me to think big and bold and that getting attention doesn’t need to cost a lot of money, you just need a good idea. Then when he thought I was ready, he named me Program Director, and let me carry on the tradition. I had graduated and was now officially one of the rebel programmers at one of the most significant brands in the industry.
How fascinating was your initial stint at WKQI in Detroit?
After a stop in KRBE in Houston, I came home to Detroit to program WKQI, and ironically the same battle I encountered in the early 90’s was still alive and well.
I’ll never forget the conversation I had with a Sales Manager shortly after adding “Country Grammar” from Nelly. He recounted riding back to the office earlier that day and “This horrible rap song came on the station, something about taking a puff and passing it.” I told him to get used to it because it was a big hit, and of course we moved it to power rotation.
Over time the station continued to evolve musically, and we surrounded it with major talent like Mojo in the Morning, Beau in the afternoon and Big Boy at night, all of whom were personality driven, and in true rebel fashion. I encouraged that team to make as much noise as possible. The station proceeded to run a direct competitor out of the format and went from 14th to 1st, Persons 12+ in Detroit.
What consistencies did you notice through these stops during your career journey?
Whether it was in Detroit, or my next stop NYC where I served as regional VP and National Format VP for CBS Radio, or in my current roles as a consultant, coach, and station owner, the one thing that remains constant is the notion that at some point you’ll face a moment where intelligent risk-taking is required of you.
Every innovation in our industry has occurred because somebody first took a chance on it. Our future depends largely on our willingness to take more risks. Yet, radio companies have become more risk-adverse than ever before, and most decisions are completely data-driven with very little room to color outside of the lines.
Could there be a next generation of rebels and renegade programmers, and how do we unleash them?
In an era with more choices than ever, it truly is a situation of “innovate or die!” Or, as one of my favorite “ultra-rebel” programmers, Kid Kelly, always says, “Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry, or poke ‘em in the eye, but make them feel something.”
By the way, Kid did just that on Z100, and on a bigger scale at Sirius-XM when his playlist looked very different than most terrestrial stations, pioneering some of the biggest Pop records way ahead of terrestrial counterparts. An intelligent risk that created a strategic difference to separate his brand from the rest.
Now think about the radio stations I mentioned earlier. How many programmers could take the risk of playing an “off-menu” song today? How long before someone from corporate would flag that and challenge the decision?
In the interest of commoditizing programming to save costs, we’ve given up much of the unique flavor that endeared many stations to their markets. And even if someone was given autonomy to take a few intelligent risks, the doubts from above would start after just one or two bad months of Nielsen.
So how can the radio industry turn the tide?
If you just mumbled under your breath “You can’t, it’s over,” I understand why you may feel this way, but it’s not true. However, I do believe we need to rethink some things if we want better results.
THE ROLE OF TALENT: I’ve recently seen a couple of perceptual research studies that show a renewed interest in talent and interesting content in-between songs. While I guess I’m glad that someone is gathering the hard data, we didn’t need a study on this any more than we needed a study to tell us that 10-minute stop-sets are a bad idea, but I digress. The advent of PPM did significant damage to personality radio with many companies overreacting to the new measurement system by significantly reducing the role of talent, limiting content to just :30 seconds into a stop-set, and over song intros only.
I recently ran a stopwatch on a major CHR station and measured the total amount of talk time of their PM Drive personality. In one hour, the jock talked for a total of 3 minutes and 42 seconds. But two of those minutes were live-read endorsements of one minute each into both stop-sets. So, basically, just over half of the total talk time in that hour was selling something for an advertiser. No wonder listeners tell us we talk too much. The talent is spending more time hawking stuff than entertaining listeners!
Personalities are the biggest point of differentiation on your station and tend to be a major driver of your digital platforms as well. If you want to hear a Doja Cat song, oh let me count the ways! But your personalities can be a major unique selling proposition for your brand if you let them entertain. Coach them, make sure they understand the brand you’re trying to build, and the goals of the station, and then UNLEASH them to perform, interact with, and entertain listeners.
MUSIC: There’s a big difference between taking intelligent risks with music and being reckless. Please understand, I’m not suggesting recklessness with music. I’m very much an advocate for music research and a disciplined approach to music rotations. However, there should always be room in any format for a little depth, whether it’s from a music feature or a new song, every format should have very disciplined rules and enough room to occasionally break those rules. Most of the time you’ll find that those intelligent risks will show up positively in research eventually. But innovation needs to occur first before it can be measured.
PROMOTIONS & MARKETING: The rebels didn’t wait or have to go through layers of red tape to jump on something topical, they just did it. Of course, I realize that the lawyers are now more involved than ever, and I’m not suggesting you violate your company’s policies. However, if you’re in a leadership position, you should work with your legal staff to streamline the process so programmers never miss the window on something topical. And to anybody in the “C Suite” reading this, please hire attorneys at the corporate office who actually understand media. Consider setting the table with them the same way Randy Michaels did (see above).
PATIENCE: Intelligent risk-taking takes time to print in Nielsen. In the diary days, it used to take three months before you’d really get a read on something you’ve done. Yet, for some reason, we believe things connect faster simply because we measure it more frequently now in PPM. This is crazy. Just because you take its temperature more frequently, it still takes just as long as it always did for the water to boil, maybe longer now because there are so many more choices and people are paying less attention; and be careful looking too granularly for results.
For example, if you see that a talent trying a new feature brought your meter count from 10 to 7 in audience reaction tool, this does NOT mean that the feature is a failure. You don’t know if those remaining seven meters will use your station more frequently because the new feature entertained them and endeared them to the talent. If you just made seven new hard-core fans, it’s a massive win, not a loss!
DELIBERATE CREATIVE TIME: Most programmers are so busy running the “business of the business” there isn’t much time left for creativity, which is why it’s so important to schedule it. Give yourself time to think about larger trends you’re seeing in music, pop culture, technology, and online, then consider what those trends might mean for your brand. Pay attention!
Are you seeing a demographic or cultural change you can develop content around? Is there a music trend that is currently being missed in the market? Can you build an interesting promotion around something newsworthy? Or take the time to write an interesting piece of imaging. But make deliberate time to consider these things and the opportunities within them.
I detect a theme here revolving around being an innovator/risk-taker for survival’s sake.
These are just a few ideas to get started along that line of thinking. But it’s high time our industry gets back into the business of taking chances again.
A business of artists became a business of scientists and that worked for a while, but it also created a lot of products that sound alike. The “science” became a checklist of so-called “best practices” that a vast majority of stations implemented, and admittedly, it probably did improve some stations. But in our efforts to improve our worst performers, we stunted the growth of our best performers by applying the same rules to everyone, even those capable of much more.
That was a significant mistake and it turned into an echo chamber as many non-conformists who challenged the “system” were shown the door. After all, it’s easy to cut the person who questions everything when corporate says we need to cut jobs. I used to deliberately hire the non-conformists, the characters, and the “crazy ones” as they made far more interesting content and found that the higher maintenance was well worth it. We must empower the artists again, and while they should understand the science, they also need to challenge it, and managers need to give them autonomy to do so and the patience to accurately measure the results.
Or… we can keep doing what we’ve always done and get the same results. Good luck with that.
