Cat Collins’ career in radio started as a part time air talent in San Luis Obispo, California in 1983. He then worked in San Jose before heading east to WPXY/Rochester in 1988. In 1994 he was named APD/MD at WJMN/Boston where he was schooled in the fundamentals of radio under the legendary Steve Rivers and Cadillac Jack McCartney. In 1998, then Jefferson Pilot now Lincoln Financial Group’s KQKS/Denver named Collins as its new Program Director and he’s been in place ever since programming a winning station that has extinguished all its competitors in the process.
eQB presents excerpts from the FMQB September Magazine Rhythm/Crossover Up Close featuring KQKS (KS107.5)/Denver PD Cat Collins
On being #1 in the Denver market…
The first thing I want to do is congratulate the company and the staff, because the PD is always out front-and-center. We do tend to get too much of the credit! In terms of the demos, we’re #1 Teens, 18-24, 25-34, 18-34 and 18-49 Adults and Women. Those were all #1’s for us, and every daypart was #118-34. It was a terrific book for us.
On how your programming philosophy has changed over the years…
I have always been a believer in air talent, but now more than ever. Good air talent, really compelling air talent, is absolutely critical to the success of local radio. Because whether it’s Internet or iPod, it’s just so easy for the consumer to get the on demand content they want, whether it’s a song, a video on the internet, a video game, whatever. The one thing they can’t get without listening to us is our local flavor delivered by our unique air talent.
On the Hip-Hop and Rhythmic format’s health…
The Rhythm format is very healthy. I think the state of Hip-Hop is probably at a low point right now. I’ll attack that question on two separate fronts. First Hip-Hop: We haven’t developed a lot of compelling new artists, and some of the established artists that have had CDs come out recently have really struggled. Who knows whether it’s the art itself or whether it’s Pop culture gravitating away from it, but there are not as many mass appeal Hip-Hop hits now versus a few years ago…The only other thing I am noticing about music in general, whether it be Hip-Hop or Pop/Rhythm, is it tends to be a little more polar with men and women and a little less mass-appeal, which makes it more challenging for music directors and programmers to craft the perfect music mix.
On playing the bigger Pop records that have been released over the last year…
Avril Lavigne and Kelly Clarkson are two great artists but for KQKS that’s probably where we draw the line. We just can’t go there. Whereas, four or five years ago we would have drawn it atJustin Timberlake, and now Justin Timberlake is what I would consider to be a core artist. Times change, what was not mass appeal for us a few years ago is now mass appeal. What I love about KQKS is we can take that brand umbrella and cover what’s hot in the Rhythmic universe. I can’t say we could cover what’s hot in the Rock universe.
On music research and what you do when your gut tells you the research might be wrong…
In general, I don’t think our research is wrong. The one thing I do not do is micromanage it week-to-week and jerk it around. We try and take it a step back and always look at a record for the long haul. An example of a record that struggled for us early and is now a #1 record in the format, and took six weeks to call out, is the Fabolous record [“Make Me Better”]. We never took it off the air. I always want to look at the big picture and the trendable information on a record over time, and try not to over react from week-to-week because we are going to see weekly fluctuations in records. We try not to make snap judgments based on one week that might look funky.
On persons actually being researched nowadays…
I am concerned both from a research and an Arbitron standpoint. Arbitron is saying that in the next year they’re going to get into cell-phone-only households, and that’s incredibly important. As far as research companies getting into cell-phone-only households, they’re going to have to figure out a way to do that – particularly for younger targeted radio stations. I know I’m stating the obvious here but how many college kids do you know that have landlines anymore? How many recent college grads that entered the workforce for the first time can afford a landline and a cell phone? It’s an incredibly important question, and the research industry and Arbitron need to get their heads together and figure out a way to reach these people.
On technology…
The Internet and text messaging excite me. I don’t know about HD radio yet. It’s been a little bit disappointing so far in terms of our ability as an industry to get hardware out to the mass public. We ought to get every group together, form a partnership, and find a way to pay for receivers and give them to the public. That won’t happen of course but it’s a nice thought right? We have to stay on top of new technologies as an industry, and try and figure out a way to get our content to as many people as we possibly can, and that stretches well beyond our terrestrial signals.
On radio promoting itself and what it can do better to ensure that listeners need to listen on a daily basis…
We’re not managing our PR well at all. Frankly, as broadcasters we’ve really cut a lot of creativity and talent out of the process over the last few years. I understand the financial pressure that the group heads are under. But what bothers me the most is that in a down economy and in an age of fragmentation, when we need to be doing everything we can to shine and to entertain and to separate ourselves from some of the other choices, we have consistently cut research, cut marketing, cut promotions, and cut people. As a programmer, I believe there is one thing I can control, that is putting an entertaining product on the air that meets the expectations of the listening audience. That means all the things that we’ve done consistently over the years as an industry: research, marketing, promotions and air talent. You start cutting back on that and you’re going to start sounding more and more like the iPod. Sounding more like an iPod is the worst thing we can do. We need to be unique, entertaining, memorable and fun and we must be brilliant in between the records. We need to give the listener a reason to seek out our stations. It just seems to me that we, as an industry, are sort of blaming new technology for a lot of our ills and I believe a lot of our ills are self-inflicted.
On the best piece of advice that someone has ever given you…
I have two that mean a lot to me. Control what you can control, which I believe is to work hard with passion and enthusiasm, and then everything else takes care of itself. Two: Steve Rivers and Cadillac Jack both preached “Play The Hits!” In the world of Top 40 radio that is a truism and it will live forever. When you see struggling stations in our format and you look at their playlists, most of the time they’re not playing the hits.
On people who are preaching the death of terrestrial radio…
I believe that as long as operators believe in terrestrial radio and all that it has to offer the listener and the advertiser we will be just fine. We can and will flourish. To the operators who continue to make massive product cuts, they will probably struggle. Of course, that’s easy for me to say, I’m not in charge of the number! Still, we are an entertainment industry and facing unprecedented competition from new technologies and new media. Now is the time to be absolutely committed to the product!
** QB Content by Bob Burke **
| Also in the September Issue: |
|
ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: Che’Nelle |
