WYSP/Philadelphia Program Director Jeff Sottolano’s career got started at WZNE (The Zone)/Rochester with the typical story: once he got involved, he fell in love with the medium. People moved on, positions opened up and he moved up the ranks until he was the PD. Sottolano moved on from Rochester to Philadelphia where he became music director and programming coordinator at WYSP. In August 2008, he took over as program director. FMQB caught up with Sottolano for a look at the product he is guiding through the treacherous narrows that are Philadelphia’s airwaves.

Jeff Sottolano

Jeff Sottolano

“I always tell people I got into radio because I hated Connecticut,” says WYSP/Philadelphia Program Director Jeff Sottolano. “I was a sophomore in college; I had given no real thought to a career in broadcasting or in the music industry but had a passion for both. I wanted to stay in Rochester for the summer, which is where I was going to college, and my parents said that I could borrow the family car, the beater, the 1986 station wagon, if I got an internship. I don’t know if somebody said I should intern at a radio station or if I thought of it. I wasn’t listening to radio a lot at the time because this was still the Napster era. I asked some friends what stations were cool and wound up stumbling on The Zone, did an internship, and convinced my parents that it was legitimate.” With a dubious start like that, Sottolano’s career jumped into the typical story that most everyone else in radio has: once he got involved, he fell in love with the medium and wanted to be there all day and all night. People moved on, positions opened up and he kept moving up the ranks until he was the station’s program director. Sottolano moved on from Rochester to Philadelphia where he became music director and programming coordinator at WYSP. He had moved on to the role of marketing director up until August 2008 when he took over as program director. Sottolano is quick to point out, “We didn’t replace me with a marketing director so I’m still involved in a lot of the marketing we do. But, my main job is I am the program director. My role is to guide the product.” FMQB caught up with Sottolano for a look at the product he is guiding through the treacherous narrows that are Philadelphia’s airwaves.

eQB presents excerpts from the August FMQB magazine Rock Up Close with WYSP/Philadelphia Program Director Jeff Sottolano

“People’s recent expectations of us were in line with an unpopular choice of rock music. When we realized that, it brought about the discussion and decision to go back to our AOR roots with “The Rock You Grew Up With.” We all felt that there’s an emotion conveyed in the positioning statement that can really relate to a listener. Not only in that they think of what music they grew up listening to but they think of the ‘YSP that they grew up with as well.”

“If you look at ‘MMR and their evolution, they were the benefactors of our decision to flip to Free-FM. As they got to go wider, they received credit for a lot of music images that were really kind of underserved in the market place. We found that there is an appetite for what we’re doing. Our focus is good and we run a tight ship to keep people’s expectations of us very clear. When they listen to ‘YSP, they’re going to get a high energy, up-tempo, real rock and roll station.”

“There’s a feeling that nobody was playing this kind of music or giving it enough attention, whether it’s they didn’t like the newer stuff that WMMR’s playing or some of the corporate rock and classic hit stuff that WMGK’s playing. People really caught onto the idea that we were going back to something they were already familiar with at WYSP. We immediately heard the positioning being thrown back at us and people saying, ‘This is the ‘YSP I grew up with and I love that you guys are back.'”

“The fact that [Danny Bonaduce] can draw on all of the different walks of life that’s he’s been involved in makes him incredibly interesting and compelling to the listener, but at the same time he’s a pretty regular guy and certainly one of his best assets we thought was the fact that he’ll go to the bar and buy a hundred listeners a beer. He’ll come to a sales meeting and know the product and know the brand and really tell them why advertising on his show will be effective for them. He’s his own best pitchman.”

“Preston and Steve have been relatively unabated for some time. This station had tried a lot of different solutions in morning drive and for one reason or another none of them showed the traction Danny already has in the six or seven months he has been on the air. We know that for this station to get back on top of the mountain in the rock wars that are legendary between us and ‘MMR, we’re going to have to do it in mornings.”

“If we saw one thing with PPM, the stations and personalities that have terrific brands did well. The stations that were visible, local, and had built caché in the market typically were the stations that were rewarded and to me that feels like common sense. It’s something that clearly we should have all been doing all along, whether it was in diary or in PPM world.”

“Our goal is to use the Philadelphia Eagles incredible brand to our advantage, because there is nothing bigger than Eagles football and you can tell that even in this year of a Phillies World Championship, that as big as that championship was and as big as that parade was down Broad Street, when the Eagles win the Super Bowl it’s going to be three times as big.”

“We’re blessed at CBS to have a really aggressive digital strategy that has taken shape over the last couple of years. The digital music stuff is the benefit of Dan Mason’s aggressive strategy towards these types of content partnerships. We’re also using Twitter, Facebook and MySpace to market the radio station. We’re not alone in that and I don’t think anyone can afford to not utilize those outlets because your audience is there. That’s one of the things that radio has lost a little sight of. We are supposed to be there before our audiences, we’re supposed to tell them about the cool stuff and when they get to Twitter, we’re supposed to be there already, we need to be the arbiters of cool.”

** QB Content by Mike Parrish **

Also in the FMQB August Magazine:
Up Close: KDJE/KHKN/Little Rock PD Jeff Cage

Jeff Cage got started in radio when he was at the University of Kansas station, KJHK. He knew radio was the career for him when he was playing a Clash song from Give ’Em Enough Rope, and “a guy 40 miles away listening with a rooftop antenna to a 100 watt station called and said that I had been playing some great music and to keep it up!” After college Cage worked in Lawrence, KS at Alternative station KLZR and then Mainstream Classic Rocker KDDV. In 2005, he got a call from a former GM who asked if he would be interested in relocating to Little Rock to program two stations. Cage decided to fly the coop from his hometown and made the move to Clear Channel’s KDJE and (at the time) KMJX, which was a Heritage Classic Rock station that has since become KHKN (Tom-FM).

** Interview by Mandy Feingold **