As the overseer of all things music for CBS Radio’s Houston cluster, Mark Adams lives, eats and breathes radio. It’s no small task creating great radio in one of the most competitive markets in the country but the results speak for themselves. Needless to say, life is pretty good nowadays for Adams in the Lone Star State!
By Bob Burke
Mark Adams
The radio industry has seen many great programmers emerge and develop over the years, but not in the numbers it once witnessed nearly a decade or two ago. The reasons vary from broadcast companies downsizing its personnel, to a lack of any real mentorship programs. But the next wave of programming minds who understand how to balance the art and science of programming are out there.
Mark Adams, VP of Music Programming, CBS Radio/Houston, is one of them, and proof that hard work and focus is still being rewarded within major radio companies. He arrived in Houston in 2008 as PD of newly signed on Top 40 KKHH (Hot 95.7) and is now overseeing music programming for Hot AC KHMX, Country KILT and Spanish KLOL. His previous programming stops include time in Portland, San Francisco, Fresno, Bakersfield and Phoenix. Nowadays, Mark Adams is producing the kinds of results in both ratings and revenue that have help to solidify CBS Radio as a major player in the Houston radio market.
Since joining CBS Radio you’ve focused HOT 95.7 into one of the top CHRs in the country. How difficult was it to break through and become a major player in such a competitive radio market like Houston?
I joined CBS radio Houston in April of 2008 and became the first Program Director for HOT 95-7 a few weeks after launch. At the time we faced three main competitors; heritage, mainstream Top 40 KRBE, Rhythmic Top 40 KPTY, and Rhythmic/Urban KBXX. While a cluttered competitive environment, we identified several opportunities. KRBE was a very adult leaning Top 40, bordering on Hot AC, The Box, while a good radio station, was and is predominately focused Urban, and The Party had been attempting to position themselves between the two. In my opinion they had not executed the correct strategy and tactics. The Party was also the most signal and ratings challenged. We designed HOT as an aggressive, forwarding leaning Top 40 station for Houston. Both market demography and the competitive environment dictated a rhythmic lean for our Pop station; with the intent of super targeting acculturated Hispanic females and designing competitive programming strategies to both re-position our competitors as well as build our own brand.
The first year was challenging. For us to succeed I knew it was going to be necessary to force one of our competitors out of the CHR lane. Our programming team in Houston, which at the time included now CBS VP of Country Relations & KMLE Phoenix PD Jeff Garrison as well as CBS VP of Programming Greg Strassell in New York, executed both music and imaging strategies to build our own brand, work towards a re-position of KRBE and KBXX, while at the same time attempting to smother KPTY.
I can’t say any of it was easy, but it was a lot of fun. We built HOT from the ground up. That included hiring an on-air staff and creating a new morning show, building out promotions and marketing, and the myriad of other things that go into creating a new radio station, and helping to establish your brand and market position. The Party flipped formats to Spanish in February of 2009 and a few months later we overtook KRBE in the ratings for the first time. While it remains an incredibly competitive battle today, I’m proud of the work our team has accomplished. We’ve built Hot into one of the biggest and most recognized stations in the market. We have a distinctive music, imaging, personality, sound, and position in Houston. As some of our imaging rhetorically asks, “Are you HOT or not”? Our HOT team owns it.
You now have more programming responsibilities on your plate. What’s the key to staying focused on each brand?
A lot of it just comes down to being organized and having the right support personnel. We have a dedicated PD for KHMX and KLOL; Tracy Austin and Fernando Perez, respectively. I have an APD/MD for KILT, Brooke Meris who also does nights. And I have an MD for KKHH, Kelly Kelly who also does midday’s. That’s in addition to the CBS format captains. I work with Dom Theodore for CHR and Jeff Kapugi for Country. I make sure I have dedicated time for each station and its employees during the week. I have my CHR music days and my Country music days. I meet regularly with the other PDs. I have dedicated jock meetings for each station and air checks with the on-air personalities and the morning shows. And of course there are Promotions, Sales, and whatever else may come up during a week.
So I’m not drowning in meetings I double up where I can. I also try to responsibly delegate. Including empowering individuals to make decisions, and take initiative, responsibility and accountability for their own work. I try to create an atmosphere where open communication is encouraged. I try not to micro manage. That’s something I’ve always had to work at a bit. It’s simply not possible to be buried in the minutia of everything equally and expect to perform at the level I’m needed. It’s important to find good people whom you can trust and let them do their job. Our Market Manager Brian Purdy, who is also the Market Manger for CBS Dallas, likes to say “Own your business.” That’s a management philosophy very much in-line with my own and I try to lead by example.
How difficult is it to program other formats? Is it as simple as any good programmer can program any format?
I really love being involved in multiple stations. While I’m probably better known as a CHR programmer, I’m fortunate to have had programming experience in a number of different formats before joining CBS, including Sports-Talk, News-Talk, Modern AC, (remember that?), in addition to both mainstream and Rhythmic CHR. My responsibilities have grown during my tenure in Houston. I added PD duties for KHMX when CBS acquired both that station and KLOL in April of 2009 from Clear Channel. After being promoted to VP of Music Programming for Houston in September of 2010 I relinquished the day to day for Mix and took over as the PD for our Country station (KILT) in addition to holding onto HOT.
I’ve always felt that good programming fundamentals transcend format. And whenever I’ve become involved in a new station or format I try to take the time to learn everything I can before making any significant adjustments or alterations of strategy. There’s always something new to learn and someone both experienced and successful to learn from. For me those new challenges are very motivating.
Which station has been the most challenging in terms of overall programming and branding?
We’ve had our issues to overcome with each station at one time or another, but I’ve had the greatest focus on our Country station over the past fourteen months or so. KILT has been Houston’s heritage Country station for more than two decades. Due to a variety of factors including a direct competitor, who was able to reposition our station in conjunction with the consistent marketing of a less commercial strategy, we wound up in a damaged brand position. This is my first Country station and it took some time to try and figure out what was going on and how to combat it. Over the past year we’ve pretty much overhauled the entire station including the design and implementation of new music programming strategies, imaging, promotions and marketing, as well as an almost complete turnover of the air staff; including putting together a new morning show to replace a program that had been on the station for more than fifteen years.
The new morning show is Foley & Thunder. Corey Foley is from The Wolf in San Francisco and Greg Thunder is from KS-95 in Minneapolis. They recently passed their one year anniversary and in that time have become Houston’s top rated Country morning show. They’re routinely scoring Top 3 or better W25-54 in the month and we’ve seen some #1 weeks over the past couple of months as well. It’s not quite a worst to first situation, but it’s not too far removed. They’ve done an excellent job for us and are helping set up and drive the day. In general, we’re seeing improvement for the station over the back half of the year. We’re still in a fierce battle with a good direct competitor but I have confidence we’re on a better track.
Is this the healthiest you’ve seen the Pop music format in some time? Do you expect to see a new music cycle or trend to occur anytime in the near future?
I actually felt 2011 was kind of a tough year for Pop in some regards. Inarguably, the hits were huge. And there were many songs that wound up becoming multi-format hits as well and received significant airplay for months on end. There were times this year you could hear Katy Perry, Bruno Mars, LMFAO, Rihanna, Maroon 5, and many others on half a dozen different radio stations in any given market. Pop was everywhere, and I think that’s a part of the problem. As the year went on I felt a certain homogeny of sound became prevalent and that we were losing some of the edges that help define the format. You know we’re in a massive, crossover Pop cycle when the mainstream AC in your market is playing Katy Perry and Bruno Mars almost as much as the Hot AC is.
For a station like HOT, which is designed to lean rhythmic to better take advantage of both market demography and the competitive landscape, it can become problematic. For much of the year, there wasn’t a great deal of crossover rhythmic product or even pop-rock at the other extreme, which seemed to break through and matter. In the last couple of months, whether it’s anecdotal or the sign of something larger and cyclical, it does seem to have shaken loose a bit. We’ve had more real hits crossing over from Rhythmic and Urban whether it’s Drake, T-Pain, or even . We may have reached a saturation point with the Rhythmic Pop/Dance. I suspect we’re going to see more of the extremes coming back to the forefront throughout the year and see CHR stations looking for ways to better separate themselves musically..
Many will argue that research is killing radio. What’s the key in balancing research with gut?
I’ve always felt you can never have enough information to look at. But I also feel it’s a necessity that’s coupled with good instincts and developing a track record for finding music that will pay off for your station. Each week our programming teams for both HOT and KILT compile as much information as we can in preparation for our music meetings. We’ll look at local and national sales, on-line and traditional callout, research from other stations, social media tracking along with phone and text requests, M-score, and whatever else we can cull together to help develop an accurate picture of what is really going on with a record. That said, for me music is primarily about passion and an emotional response. And that can’t be quantified. What’s a hit song? To paraphrase that well known colloquialism from Supreme Court Justice Stewart, “I know it when I hear it.”
I listen to a lot of music across several formats and I have my “ding” moments when I come across a song that to me just screams hit. That kind of emotional reaction can sometimes occur weeks before you can assemble a compelling research story to bolster that initial impression. I’m certainly not always right. I invariably whiff on a couple of big ones every year. But I keep track of my hits and misses and encourage everyone involved in our music meetings to do the same. For that reason I know my hit and miss ratio is pretty good and where most of my strengths and weaknesses lie. And fortunately I work for a company that empowers me to take intelligent risks and to make decisions.
I hate to talk about music so dryly and tactically, but specific to the commercial radio programming songs are weapons. Everything you play on your station matters, and that includes when, where and how often. Lots of songs sound good, but which ones are just taking up three and a half minutes of air-time and which ones really matter? What are the difference makers? It’s about finding the weapons that can help your station succeed.
Define the importance of digital platforms within your cluster?
In a word: critical. Digital media is not replacing radio; it’s working in tandem with it. It’s a large part of what we do today and will take an even larger role in our future. We attempt to place as much importance on the development and growth of our digital space as our on-air; and the two are inexorably entwined. We have a local content team including the on-air personalities of the stations and they work in conjunction with our corporate content providers. They’re an excellent resource providing both direction and support. Our stations stream, we offer mobile applications, we offer web exclusive contesting, and we have exclusive on-line properties and partnerships. Our web teams do a great job in offering both exclusive and non-duplicable content for our sites. It’s all designed to create more total exposure and greater media usage. Radio is the content we provide, not just a tower. Our digital assets give us even greater reach and allow our listeners and customers to take us along with them wherever they go and in whatever manner they choose.
Did you ever envision the role social media would play in helping with brand extension?
I’d love to play Nostradamus and say I had the vision and foresight to see how social media would transform our medium but I’d be full of it! I’m kind of a gamer geek and tech-nerd and yet the full scope of how these emergent technologies have impacted our business and revolutionized how we both market to and interact with our listeners and advertisers is still amazing. Does it even seem possible that Facebook has only been around since 2006? Or Twitter not that much longer? Today it seems unimaginable not to have these tools at your disposal and yet it wasn’t that long ago they didn’t even exist. HOT in particular aggressively markets our Facebook, Twitter, texting, web and a number of other related applications. Inarguably, Social Media is how we stay the most connected with our listeners today. It provides such immediate, direct access with your listening audience that their importance cannot be overstated.
As radio programmers we’re always looking for new and innovative ways to make an emotional connection with our listeners and build a relationship. While I can honestly say our teams here, and at my prior group of stations in Portland, Oregon as well, have been quick to seek out and adopt these tools, I’ve been surprised by the sheer scope and continuing impact. We’re always looking for “what’s next.” Radio offers such intimacy, locality and immediacy. It’s truly made for social media. I can’t see this doing anything but continuing to expand, and probably in ways that will be tough to fully anticipate.
So many programmers genuinely enjoy working within the CBS Radio family. What’s it like being a part of company that has been described as being run by “real radio people who get it?”
I couldn’t be happier or more proud to work for CBS. In the past, by happenstance rather than design, I’d always worked for smaller companies or independent ownership. So I’d never had the opportunity to be a part of a larger radio company and work with so many other talented programmers. We have sharp, collaborate programming minds at every level of the organization and they’re available to offer constructive criticism as well as positive feedback and support. And it’s nice to be able to share that those resources have never interfered with my autonomy. It’s been an easy organization to fall in love with. I know that sounds a little overly Rah-Rah or Pollyannaish, but it’s accurate.
Over the past couple of years or so I’ve had more and more occasion to network with some of our other programmers and I always value hearing a new or different idea or what’s working for someone else. Greg Strassell in New York always offers balanced insight and direction. I speak regularly with Dom Theodore and Michael Martin in San Francisco. And on our Top 40 calls I have a chance to hear from great people like Todd Cavanaugh and Erik Bradley, Cat Thomas, John Reynolds, Orlando, John Michael from AMP in LA, Grooves in Detroit, and many others.
I can’t say enough about how cool it is to have a programmer as the President of the company. Dan Mason is the kind of leader people want to follow. CBS radio gets it. They get content. They get local. They want to be a radio company. I’m an unapologetic radio dork so it’s a great place to be.
What still excites you most on a daily basis when it comes to radio?
Not to be flip, but there’s always something new to work on. My work can be all encompassing and I sometimes have difficulty balancing the professional and the personal, but I have a hard time imagining what else I’d be doing.
What’s the biggest mistake young programmers are still making nowadays when it comes to programming? What should they know in terms of being pro-active in career advancement?
I’d encourage them to make a concerted effort to learn the business as well as the art of radio. I began my career as a DJ and eventually became a programmer. I’m embarrassed to admit I lacked any real understanding of how our business actually worked until well after I assumed that first PD job. As a young DJ I remember thinking the PD was the guy who got to pick the music. And I speak to a surprising number of people today who are either have the same general impression or have yet to grow beyond it.
I love the actual programming of the stations; putting together the clocks, rotations and music. I enjoy being a talent coach. I enjoy creative writing and script all of our imaging. I still get excited by goofy, stupid, outrageous promotion ideas and funny or interesting ways to market our brands. All of that said, being able to intelligently discuss sales, digital, NTR, and having the business acumen to work as partner with other department heads so as a team we can achieve our revenue goals are equally important. The ability to wear multiple hats is vitally important for a programmer today. I’d encourage anyone to learn as much as you can, encompassing every area of a radio station, and try not to limit yourself by format.
Over the last couple of years many people have been declaring the death of terrestrial radio. Has the medium done a good job of proving the naysayers wrong? And what’s the key to ensuring it remains the go-to media of choice??
Every week radio reaches 93% of everyone in America. For reaching large numbers of people there’s simply no substitute. That’s more than web alone, more than newspaper, magazines, and any other niche broadcasting entity you can name. I’ve been in radio long enough to have been through at least half a dozen instances where punditry have declared the death of our medium. Reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated.
Something I touch on again and again is radio’s ability to create locality and immediacy. We have the ability to create emotional relationships with our listeners that many of our competing mediums have a difficult time replicating. At our best we’re not just playing songs; we’re offering a fully realized brand and a more complete user experience. Our industry has proven both proactive and adaptable. Anyone who doubts the power of a radio station to affect it’s listeners and a community only have to look towards the great concerts, events, public service initiatives, and proven sales results radio can provide. Sometimes the best “wins” are seeing first hand how something your station has done has positively affected a single person or family.
[eQB Content by Bob Burke]
