Entercom is a big believer in live and local radio and that’s a good thing for one of its prized OM’s Mike O’Donnell because he wouldn’t have it any other way. OD takes pride in his company for the support he gets which reinforces his radio philosophy and beliefs. OD and the outlets he oversees, are both veterans of several radio wars through the years, as the heritage resonates from both this seasoned programmer and the winning properties entrusted to him in Northeastern, PA.
By Fred Deane
Mike O’Donnell
The ability to grow in positions is the nature of the game these days in radio as the ever expanding universe of the multi-media landscape continues to grow at a record pace. Fully embracing technology is as mandatory as recalling what radio’s primary goal should always be, super-serving your local communities. Mike “OD” O’Donnell is a charter member of this school of thought and has been throughout his successful career. From his early days in Cape Cod and Portsmouth to his arrival at Entercom in June of 2007, OD has stayed close to the tenets that have guided him as a programmer…and localism and growth are its primary features.
When OD arrived in Scranton to assume the programming of heritage CHR WKRZ he knew he was taking on a very special property. The station’s rich history in the market had a transcendence quality to it and he carefully absorbed it and guided the station to its perpetual winning ways. In February of 2010, Entercom rewarded OD with the OM gig of its three cluster properties in Scranton Wilkes-Barre: WKRZ, Country giant WGGY (Froggy 101), and Classic Rocker WDMT/102.3 The Mountain. WKRZ and Froggy have consistently been atop the ratings pack a streak that OD has become very accustomed to.
You oversee an extremely successful cluster for Entercom, particularly with WKRZ and WGGY consistently coming in at the top of the ratings pack. What are the challenges of keeping the stations concurrently at the head of the heap?
It’s tough because when you have the luxury of overseeing just one brand you’re able to give it the “super love.” You can make it all your own and really embrace it. As an OM, you have to balance out your time among all of your brands. The Froggy staff knew I came from WKRZ, so they felt I would always favor KRZ, and I think I’ve proven that’s not the case since I’ve taken Froggy over. As a matter of fact when you look at the last three books for Froggy, we’ve gone up an average of two share points in persons 25-54 (from a 6 to 8, and now we’re a 10 share 25-54 adults.)
But as an OM you’re always going back and forth, changing gears all day. You’re in meetings with other managers, meetings with jocks for aircheck sessions, and then you’re in meetings with your promotions people for each station. For me it’s constantly about making sure that each of the brands are getting the same amount of love, because sometimes I’ll get wrapped up in some big promotions that are happening on Froggy and you have to remember you have four or five things on the fire at KRZ. It’s a big balancing game and staying on top of priorities at both and making sure your stations are constantly going after that right demo is essential.
Where is the demo overlap at both stations?
KRZ and Froggy both cater to adults. Froggy targets 25-54’s, and with KRZ being such a wide mass appeal station, even though most CHR’s are 18-34 centric, it swings a little more adult and also leans a little more Rock, so we get a lot of the upper demos at KRZ. Our goal is to give Froggy a little edge on the top end of that 25-54 demo and KRZ has that edge on the lower end.
What are your guidelines for staying focused on all three brands on a perpetual basis?
Yes, The Mountain is in the mix as well, and from my standpoint we’ve always wanted The Mountain to have the feel of an anti-radio station so we don’t do a lot of promotions, it’s more about the music. However I do sit with my MD and make sure the music and music flow are on target.
Most of the stuff I do outside of that is always going to be about KRZ and Froggy. I basically divide my week up. We have specific days for each station where we meet for promotions. We have staff meetings biweekly with each of the respective staffs to talk about what’s going on in general and what we need to focus on at each station. Sometimes there are new things coming down in the industry or you get some great new data on PPM that you want to share with the staffs. Even though we’re not a PPM market, I believe it’s smart to think along those lines in terms of what we’re doing on the air whether it’s teasers or promotions and so forth. We will discuss that kind of stuff as well to help the staff with their show execution.
What parallels can you draw between KRZ and Froggy that are symbolic of the sustained success they enjoy?
One aspect that attracted me to Entercom and WKRZ initially is that I was coming to a station that had a giant heritage brand and two giant heritage shows in Rocky & Sue in the mornings and Jeff Walker in afternoons. These shows are 20+ and 30+ years respectively and still dominate in the ratings. The radio world we’re in today is consistently going to continue to consolidate and we need to look at what we can do for our brands to be competitive and to run our businesses more efficiently for the bottom line. But here, I believe our stations have done so well because we connect with the market on so many levels. We have live and local heritage jocks that go out and hang with the people in the market, and invite those people into what we do everyday on the air. So when the phone rings it isn’t somebody from Chicago or New York with the bit, it’s somebody down the street either in Scranton, Wilkes-Barre or Hazelton.
Both KRZ and Froggy are very involved with the community. There are a number of events throughout the year that specially cater to things going on in the market, whether it be our big KRZ local breast cancer promotion (Bras across the Bridge), or our Christmas promotion called KRZ Cares for Kids. Froggy is the same way. We reach out to the community and honestly, the people really do react. They know we’re there for them creating a special bond with the listeners because they know you really care about what’s going on in their neighborhood.
Are there commonalities between your core Top 40 listeners and your core Country listeners that tell you something about listener loyalty in general?
They appreciate the fact that we’re live and local and they know we’re here. When you’re in a market that has a lot of consolidated radio and a lot of national feeds, if you’re one of the few that have good local products, you’re really going to stand out. I believe we absolutely do that here. It’s one thing to have a couple jocks on the air that are basically plug and play and say they’re live and local,but it’s the exclusive show content that makes the difference. Our guys take their content or bits and spin it for Northeast PA.
A great example of this recently at KRZ happened on Jeff Walker’s show over New Year’s. There was an incident at a local bar on New Year’s eve and a woman had been attacked and she had been in the hospital. There had been very little action on the authority’s part to try to ID the perpetrator. Because this was violence on women which ties into us, Jeff brought it up on the air and the phones blew up. People appreciated the fact that we were shedding light on this in support of one of our own. It’s another example of when you talk to the people down the street; they’re going to react to it because it’s not just generic radio.
How would describe the essential qualities an OM must possess to be successful?
Mine have changed over the years. When I first started managing multiple staffs, one of my challenges was being able to delegate and trust the people I was delegating to. I’ve struggled with that because over the years I’ve always had my hands into everything. I’ve always done it all. I started at a very small mom and pop station and worked my way up the ranks into Clear Channel and Entercom. So letting go of responsibilities and trusting others, allowing them to spread their wings was a difficult process to assimilate. That said, I believe as a control freak, you’re not going to get as much out of your people. If you’re a good mentor and a good guide to get people into the process of managing tasks, your people will respond favorably and you will connect with them in a much more constructive way. Over my last 4-5 years I believe I’ve done a lot of that where I just kind of let people assume the responsibilities and some great things have happened. I’m glad I actually got to that point in my life where I’m able to trust people to get things done and not be a power monger.
As an experienced OM, what have you found to be the most significant differences between the PD and OM positions?
As a programmer I was a lot more connected with the music and the imaging because I did a lot of that myself. I would be in the studio and very much hands-on in producing imaging and promos. As an OM, I feel more like a ring leader. You’re in a lot more meetings with different departments throughout the day, and you’re trying to keep that overall long term vision for the station on track. It does take time away from just looking at the music log. I also feel it’s very important to reach out and try to touch base and talk to everybody on a regular basis. You hear stories about managers who are never accessible or you just never see them around. I try to make a point of going around and try to say hi to everybody and see what’s going on in their lives.
As radio revenue rebounded somewhat this past year, how did your cluster fare throughout the year?
We increased our margins in this cluster in every category of advertising, and overall we ended up being flat for 2011, which is not necessarily a bad thing. We started out a little ahead and then fell back slightly and stayed flat. However we did grow our margins relative to our competitors. We had 49% of the radio market share of the available radio advertising dollars for the year.
How involved do you get in sales strategies, client visits and overall assessments of the cluster’s revenue position in the marketplace?
I get pretty involved. It starts with our promotions department and then comes to me. I like to be involved with the department because I want to make sure that whatever we’re putting out on the stations is consistent with the brand, in terms of what clients are involved, how it is attached to sales, are there giveaways, or is it a larger scale promotion. It all has to mesh with our brand. I’m typically involved with a lot of the big initiatives. I’m also involved in a number of NTR projects where I offer input on how I think the on-air treatment should play out. Sometimes it’s a matter of moving the needle with a client and turning a B spender into an A spender. For the most part I am involved all around.
Do you see the trend of in-dash technology entertainment being readily embraced by the auto industry making more options available as an advantage or disadvantage because it’s bringing the streams into your space?
I absolutely embrace the technology because you’re not going to stop it and I kind of look at it in reverse. Yes it’s obviously going to bring in other players and it might splinter my audience slightly, but I go back to my philosophy of if we’re constantly putting out a fantastic local customized brand for my market, we win. If people drive to Florida on vacation, they’ll probably stream us all the way down if we’re giving them what they need. They’re still going to feel connected to home. I’ve always felt that’s the difference between being a jukebox and a true partner with your market, the ability to connect so they will want to find you even though there are other options.
Did you ever envision how big of a role social media would play in helping with brand extension?
If I was breaking into the business now, I’d be saying, “Wow we have to do this, that and the other thing!” You look at it like waking up each day, it’s automatic. If you were to ask me this when I first got into radio years ago that there’s going to be this new social media technology where people connect, I would never have believed it would come to fruition. I think it’s bigger than anybody could have ever pictured. Most people didn’t even know what Facebook was six years ago. The fact that social technology can extend our brands with the audience on multi-levels is an amazing thing. Radio was the first social community a very long time ago and blossomed into this form of full entertainment and lifestyle programming. Now that we’re given the opportunity to have our brands and personalities connect even more frequently in more ways on more platforms, further strengthens our bond and relationship with our audience and is a phenomenal addition to capturing our “in the moment” opportunities with them. Not only is it way beyond my imagination, and I think there’s so much more that can be done going forward which excites me even further.
If you were to look outside the radio industry for analogies of businesses that have struggled with tech change, what initially comes to mind and what lessons have you learned?
The one that stands out the most is the print industry as it continues to lose its share in the physical world. I kind of feel like print really never got it, and people getting newspapers delivered to their homes or going to the corner store to pick up a newspaper or magazine seems like such a thing of the past. I feel like it was an industry that was severely handicapped from the beginning of the digital age. Print could have reacted a lot faster over the years in getting online and connecting with consumers. Maybe at this stage it’s time for a one hundred percent digital newspaper. Do we really need to be still printing paper?
I believe the slower you react to technological advancement that surrounds you’re particular business, the more at risk you are of failing. I always keep that in the back of my mind regarding technology. You have to keep rolling with it. You have to keep finding ways to invite it, not fight it. Bottom line is technology moves at a very fast pace and you have to keep focused on the relevance to your industry and your particular product. Our goal has always been to maximize the relevant technology to help keep our brands at the top of their respective games. The importance of digital platforms is a high priority within our cluster as extensions of our shows in regards to video and audio. I believe the technology is great. I think one of the coolest things we’ve done is come out with apps for our stations.
What guides your music decisions the most at both stations?
You really have to understand where your market is in terms of demographics and their tastes, and we pride ourselves on having a thorough understanding of that for each of our audience groups. Outside of that we rely very heavily on research. We’re lucky enough to have local research that comes in and drives a lot of what we do. There’s so much music coming at you from the labels each week. It’s not even uncommon to have an artist with four singles on the chart at once and it really clouds the selection process. We also look at local sales and iTunes as a great reference. Overall I’m a big research guy, but we’ll go by our gut on a tune here and there when we know is right up our alley and right for our audience.
At WKRZ you’re always talking about your Powers lasting forever in research with minimal burn, even with over a thousand spins on records. What do you attribute this most to?
I’ve always believed there are only so many great songs at any given time that are out there. You can either play a bunch of music that’s just okay or you can utilize the research in helping you determine the golden nuggets of the pile, and when you find a golden nugget, it’s going to last for a very long time. Some stuff you play will end up as mediocre records with lower research scores, but when you find the special ones, you want to champion those and burn them right into the texture of your station. I’ve always believed a very well researched and solid recurrent library will never hurt you. The less bad records you play, gives you more good records you’re going to play much longer.
Why aren’t Rock records testing as well now as they have so consistently done so in the past at KRZ?
It’s a big surprise, but look at the pattern. Wilkes-Barre Scranton has always been a market that has leaned more Rock and a little more Pop, and that’s the kind of radio station WKRZ is. However, when you have the Dance explosion you’ve had over the past two years, it’s obviously going to invade your market and I think that has shown in terms of peoples’ music choices here too. That doesn’t mean that a great new (or old) Rock record is not going to matter on our station, it is. It’s just basically a characteristic of the flavor of the moment.
What are the biggest threats to terrestrial radio in terms of losing audience TSL?
The available streams on the Internet offer the listener so much these days be it Pandora, Spotify or the like, and to be able to stream right from your car is definitely going to affect us. In terms of terrestrial radio, we have to get out of the mindset of only transmitting to a fifty mile radius of the station and think more universally.
We have to continue to embrace the technology. We have apps for iPhones and Androids that we’re streaming our stations on and I think it’s really important that we’re telling our listeners that you can take us anywhere. It certainly would be a threat if you fall behind that curve. If you make sure your brands are available on all of the multiple platforms, people will still want to take you with them wherever they go.
As consolidation continues to be the order of the day for many radio groups, how do you reinforce the notion of stability and localism to your immediate staff to maintain motivation and focus among the ranks?
I see radio consolidation everywhere I go, everywhere I’ve worked it’s been a topic of discussion, or it’s happened. I respect whatever a company has to do in terms of making itself fiscally fit, and I know we need to make our businesses competitive regarding the bottom line. However, I think that all of it can be accomplished if we maximize the resources we have to the max. I believe in the power of localism and a station’s abilities to reach out to their communities at moment’s notice. I truly feel you need personalities in the marketplace and bodies in the building to ultimately make this happen on a consistently ongoing basis.
There are no certainties about what companies are going to do but you want to reinforce your strengths within your company and with your immediate staff. There are a lot of people who have their hands in the piggy bank and there’s a lot of pressure for each company to squeeze more out of the bottom, but you can only control what’s in the domain of your job scope and the resources that your company hands you. Entercom does an outstanding job of allowing us to be the stations we need to be while affording us all the resources necessary to sustain and remain locally competitive.
What is your main strategy to keep them focused?
You have to reinforce to your people the benefits of what we do each day as a locally operated group that has a staff of local personalities. You have to continue to tell them that as top personalities your number one job is to come to work everyday and do the best they possibly can to help us win and not worry about what they may be reading in industry trades. I believe the people here all have great respect for Entercom and its commitment to embrace and champion local radio. I’m proud to be working for a company like this. Not to say that anyone else is doing it wrong, it’s just that this is Entercom’s model, and it’s a great thing.
That being said, as responsible managers we need to be proactive in what we can do to tighten our belt and save resources where we can and still have a compelling local brand.
What are your station goals for 2012 relative to the programming, marketing and management of personalities?
We’re going to continue in our winning ways but also look at more ways to maximize what we’re doing to get the most out of the resources we have. Another important goal, because of the current market dynamics, is to make sure that we’re out in front of our community and our listeners to reinforce the fact that we’re not being beamed down from a satellite. Getting in front of the listeners has always won us votes.
[eQB Content by Fred Deane]
