Gene Romano
Gene Romano was one of the most accomplished Rock programmers of the eighties and nineties. After scoring huge numbers at WZZO/Allentown in the eighties, Gene brought his act to WDVE/Pittsburgh and made that station the legendary Heritage Rock station that it is today.
In 1997 Romano joined Jacor as Director of Rock Programming. In 1998, Jacor was purchased by Clear Channel, whose principals decided to install the Jacor management team to run the new Clear Channel organization. The senior executive players at the time included Randy Michaels, John Hogan, Tom Owens, Marc Chase and Gene Romano, the team that would run Clear Channel for the next decade.
Recently, Romano was promoted to Executive Vice President of Programming where he will be involved with more global company programming initiatives and planning.
e-QB presents excerpts from the October FMQB magazine Cover Story with Gene Romano, EVP of Programming, Clear Channel
On Clear Channel’s philosophy in allocating resources across company properties… Clear Channel has been very effective in harnessing our mental weaponry in a few different ways. We’ve had a structured as well as organic mentoring system in place for many years aimed at helping to develop the skills of first time or less experienced programmers. Programmers have benefited by our ability to share various best practices, talent, marketing concepts and creative. We’ve worked at developing an environment where programmers networked aggressively within the company sharing not only specific ideas but our unique talent resources as well.
On new media competitive challenges facing radio… Our biggest threat continues to be if our actions don’t keep up with the constantly changing consumer behavior and changing tastes. It’s not good enough for us to just understand that the new media competitive landscape has altered forever how consumers listen to and view radio. We have to deliver every day/every hour new tactics and programming strategies that are recalibrated to the new competitive landscape. We can’t program the same way, interpret research the same way, manage talent the same way or market the same way as we did even three years ago let alone ten years ago. We have to continue to question our programming assumptions and be aware that what worked yesterday could likely fail tomorrow.
On CC’s on-line efforts… We’ve generated momentum over the past few years particularly with our online efforts. Evan Harrison and his team have built an on-demand business now averaging 40 million plays per month driven by our local stations. We average 10 to 12 million unique visitors a month to our sites, far outpacing our radio competitors and very competitive with national portals. We feel very good about our growth prospects.
On the timing factor in implementing on-line initiatives… I think we always look back and wish we would have engaged new ideas and successful strategies sooner than we did. Clear Channel has been investing heavily in our online efforts for many years. We continue to grow our position and provide unique content. Our station websites continue to help deepen the relationship with our listeners. Over the past four years in particular, we now have a generation of programmers taking advantage of extending the station brands online and understanding the critical importance of connecting with our listeners online on a daily basis.
On the short-term goals of the company as it prepares itself for a new vision path… Under (CEO) John Hogan the emphasis and focus has always been on performance. That doesn’t change. We want to be best in class in all aspects of our operation. We believe one of our greatest strengths is our people. Our goal is to retain the best and aggressively recruit others to help fuel our long-term growth. We want to continue to provide a fertile workplace for the best programming and air talent to grow.
On critical issues that must be addressed… A high level of accountability is expected. We have outstanding people, resources, tools, shared best practices and systems. We’ll continue to develop more of them. But the most critical issue is consistently executing the plans. Making sure that what we think is happening and what we intend on happening, is actually occurring on the air every day.
On initiatives he has worked on recently that have come to fruition… We’ve provided programmers with many different resources to help them become advanced thinkers. Many have advanced in the company over the past few years taking on greater responsibility. We’ve hired high performing talent from our competitors. That is an ongoing initiative for us. We’ve leveraged some of our very best talents across more markets: New York’s Elvis Duran, Phoenix’s John Jay & Rich, Columbus’s Dave & Jimmy, to name a few. There isn’t a competitor in our industry doing what we are currently doing and we are planning to do more with talent.
On what the advertising community needs to understand most about radio going forward…This just in…radio reaches more people every week than any other medium and we don’t plan on sitting on our hands. We want to continue to take a leadership position in offering our advertisers access to some of the best talent on the planet, access to a deep emotional bond that our local stations have created in their markets on air and online, access to our enormous company footprint, creativity, solutions based approach and innovation that we continue to offer.
On the company psyche given the elimination of Wall Street quarterly pressures… There are no fewer expectations when it comes to driving ratings and revenue, managing expenses wisely and allocating our resources in an intelligent manner. We’ve always had longer term strategies along with our focus to win in each quarter. In terms of the psyche of our local teams, they hated losing and loved winning each quarter before we became a private company, and that didn’t change the day we closed.
** QB Content by Fred Deane **
