ROCK: WRIF/Detroit APD/MD Mark Pennington

Mark Pennington

Greater Media’s WRIF/Detroit has been heralded as one of the leaders in HD radio programming with its Riff2 offshoot. The HD channel has been such a success that it was recently recognized by The National Association of Broadcasters at the NAB Radio Awards. At the helm of Riff 2 is WRIF APD/MD Mark Pennington who was voted Active Rock’s Most Influential Programmer in the FMQB 2006 Leaders Poll due in large part for his work on the HD radio channel. 

Greater Media’s WRIF/Detroit has been heralded as one of the leaders in HD radio programming with its Riff2 offshoot. The HD channel has been such a success that it was recently recognized by The National Association of Broadcasters at the NAB Radio Awards. Riff2 was given the HD Radio Multicast Award which was established to recognize stations utilizing HD radio technology to its fullest through innovative or groundbreaking programming on a multicast channel. At the helm of Riff2 is WRIF APD/MD Mark Pennington who was voted Active Rock’s Most Influential Programmer in the FMQB 2006 Leaders Poll due in large part for his work on the HD radio channel.  We caught up with Pennington for a discussion about HD radio and Riff2. 

eQB presents excerpts from the FMQB October Magazine Rock Up Close featuring WRIF/Detroit APD/MD Mark Pennington

On what made him an early beliver in HD Radio…
Our company really saw this as an opportunity to really expand our programming and expand radio and broadcasting in general.  We knew that Detroit was going to be a very important market because of the car companies being here.  For this thing to work, we need to get the car companies on board to have these radios in cars. With ‘RIF being in Detroit, we wanted to make some waves and about two years ago started doing some innovative programming trying to get the car companies excited.

On the future of HD Radio in cars…
The American car companies have a vested financial interest in satellite radio and that has been their big push over the last 5 years. I think if we show them that HD radio is a viable, they will eventually come around. I am not sure it will be the big media splash that we thought, but as long as we are in the dash, we win. Now they’re starting to see that people are taking it seriously and are developing innovative programming. So, it’s going to take time because from the planning stage to getting it into the cars takes years.  Even if they agree to it right now, it takes years for that to roll out because of the whole process of research and development. The car companies are just really trying to feel it out to make sure that their investment is going to be worth it and I think we’re proving to them that it will be.

On RIF2…
We’ve been on for two years now, and we’re gearing it towards the 18-24 year-old guy.  Tom Bendercame to me a few years ago and said, “Try something different, make some waves, but there are three rules I want you to follow.” Basically, he said to target an 18-24 year-old guy; break the rules of traditional radio; and play 25 percent of local music.   We’ve tried to start with that and work our way out.  We’re very life-styled geared.  We have shows about MySpace.  We have a weekly gaming show.  We’re talking about text messaging.  We’re really trying to be where an 18 year-old guy is and his lifestyle, and we incorporate that into the station.  We’re also all over the place formatically. We play Hip-Hop, Indie, Metal, etc. So it’s almost kind of a hybrid, but because they’re people who have grown up with MTV and their iPods, they see it as music not as a format so we’re trying to tap into that as well. 

On the job of terrestrial radio to reach younger end listeners… I’ve heard that a lot at conventions where people have been like, “Oh, you know, young people don’t want to get into radio anymore; they’re not excited about it.”  Well, we haven’t given them a reason to be.  We haven’t programmed to them.  We haven’t made a radio station that they’d want to listen to.  If you do, which we have, you’ll find they are into it – but you’ve got to give them an opportunity to do it.  You’ve got to give them an opportunity to come in and make an impact and to find a way to incorporate them into the radio station.  If you do, they are as passionate as I was 15 years ago.
We really have left that whole demographic behind, especially Rock and Alternative.  We’ve all tried to move over to the money demos, and we’ve left that gap there.  If you cater to them they’ll respond to it, but you have to give them programming that fits their lifestyle. You really have to adapt and try some new things and experiment, and really try to tap into how they’re living.

On incorporating other tech platforms into terrestrial radio…
We’ve been trying for years to incorporate the web and generate revenue and it really hasn’t been all that successful yet. Just like good radio, a successful website needs good creative content. Our new Riff2 site is an online community where listeners sign up and create profiles much like MySpace. They can then add content.  With HD, we’re going to be able to do that as well.  With RIF 2, it’s very important that we have a website where you can stream and listen to the station — because if you’re trying to tell people to go out and buy an HD radio, they need to hear it and just trying to explain it to them won’t work.  You have to be able to let them sample the station: hear it, find out what’s going on, and find out if they really like it or not. If they do, they’ll go buy the radio.  That’s what we’re seeing here where people are actually buying the radios because of the stream. They’ve heard the station and they like it. 
HD radio has a lot of other opportunities too because of the digital broadcast.  Down the road we’ll be able to send information to GPS units such as, “That song was on Atlantic Records. If you want to buy it, click here.” We’ll also be able to send real time traffic information to GPS units.  There’s a whole bunch of stuff in the pipeline. 

**QB Content by Michael Parrish*