Dennis Constantine is a radio lifer who recently took over the PD chair at Cumulus Triple A KFOG/San Francisco, after more than a decade successfully programming Portland’s Triple A outlet, KINK. Constantine recently spent some time on the phone with FMQB, talking about the short time he spent between gigs consulting, as well as the new challenges he faces taking over a heritage signal in a rapidly changing marketplace.
Dennis Constantine
By Jack Barton
In the fall of 2010, Dennis Constantine, who had spent well over a decade as PD of Triple A KINK/Portland, suddenly found himself a free agent at a time when the radio universe was shrinking. Some industry veterans may have looked at the multitudes of successes Constantine has had through the years – from his Top 40 days in Baltimore, through the Progressive Rock era of the late-’60s/early-’70s to the launch ofKBCO/Boulder and through the birth and success of Triple A – and called it a career. But Constantine is a radio lifer and immediately started looking at opportunities, taking a consulting gig or two and entertaining the offers that, surprisingly, started cropping up almost immediately. It was after only a few months, in February 2011, that Constantine found himself back in radio, taking over the PD chair at the legendary KFOG/San Francisco; a chair that had been empty since Dave Benson, now PD at Triple AKMTT/Seattle, vacated it almost two years earlier.
Constantine recently spent some time on the phone with FMQB, talking about the short time he spent between gigs consulting, as well as the new challenges he faces taking over a heritage signal in a rapidly changing marketplace.
After well over a decade at KINK/Portland, you recently spent a short time between gigs, before landing at KFOG. Talk about the changes in the employment landscape since the last time you were a free agent.
I guess I wasn’t really as surprised as I could have been. Being in the PD’s chair (at KINK) I saw where the industry was going. The economy has really played a major role in a lot of the decisions that were made the last few years in radio, simply because the economy was tough. When businesses look for places to cut dollars, they cut the things that are less important to them in their operation, and for most businesses that’s their marketing budget. That affects radio stations’ bottom lines when our revenue model depends on a lot of that advertising income. So when the advertising income is down, everybody who depends on it is looking at ways to cut back, save money, keep the expenses down.
I knew that was the phase that all radio stations were in; it was a tough time in the economy. So I was pleasantly surprised, because, for me, there were a lot of opportunities out there, and KFOG being at the top of the list. They were without a PD since Benson had left, and they didn’t even have a GM at that point, so there really was a ship without a captain. It was an interesting time in radio.
You also spent a little time back in consulting while you were in between stations. What did you find the changes in the consultant’s role to be??
It was interesting. I found that stations were looking more for almost a remote program director; somebody who would basically be very hands-on, much in the way that a PD would be, except not on staff. And so, there were a lot of expectations of the consultant that were way beyond what consultants had traditionally done in the past.
So you were contemplating either rebuilding your consultancy or taking one of a number of job options, one of which is KFOG?
There’s a reason I got out of consulting in the first place, and that is that when you’re in a radio station you’re part of a team. It’s the concept of all working together for a unified goal that excites me much more than flying into a station, being part of discussions and ideas – which is all very inspiring – but then leaving and not being part of the process of the execution and building. The building and the maintaining and all of that stuff is really what I love about radio. It’s the day-to-day things that go on; the promotions, having the artists by and interacting with the audience out at station promotions. Those are all the things that, as a consultant, you’re always kind of on the outside of. I love being in a radio station and just eating, breathing, living the life of that station.
There are a lot less bodies to share that living and breathing and eating space anymore. Talk about the process of being the leader to implement those things with much smaller teams that are stretched very thin.
It’s not as different as you state it is because, yeah the teams were bigger but a lot of the team members were either part-time or they weren’t really part the brain trust. The core brain trust is still there. Just instead of having a staff of 15 or 20 people, you now have a more core group that’s getting the work done. And in some ways it can be more efficient when there’s less things, less people with their hands on it. It’s kind of hard to explain, but when there’s more people involved there has to be more training and more hands-on managing of the thing, as opposed to just doing it.
You moved from one of the most respected Triple A stations in the country to another member of the same club. How does the process of evaluating the station differ from when you walked into KINK back in the ’90s?
Every station has its culture and it’s different depending on different parts of its lifecycle. So, for example, at KBCO I was there from the birth of the station and watched it grow through infancy to maturity. At KINK I walked into a very mature radio station that needed some new life, and at KFOG, I walked into a radio station that needed a leader. Every situation is different, and it’s just being in tune with what the needs of the station are, and understanding the culture and the lifeline; where the station is along its lifecycle and just respecting that, honoring it and then living and breathing it.
So tell me how KFOG and its culture fit into San Francisco and its culture.
KFOG is so connected to San Francisco and the Bay Area. First of all, there have been some amazing PDs here through the years who have really done a lot of great ground work connecting with the community. They bring in millions and millions of dollars for various organizations from food banks to kids’ homelessness. They’ve done a lot of really good work in the community, and it’s also connected with its fans in a very strong way, doing a lot of interactive promotions and just being involved with the Fogheads and really working with them closely. So it’s an amazing station that has a great heritage.
That it does. One of the ways KFOG has connected to the city was by being a very musically active station in a very musically active format, an approach that has been challenged by the PPM technology. How has that affected KFOG?
I’ve been meeting with a lot of KFOG listeners just to make sure that I don’t have any sort of preconceived notions or ideas about what it is they want. I want to hear directly from them what it is they want. Yes, they’re a very musically active audience. Whether they’re mature or younger, the reason they listen to KFOG is not only for companionship – because we have an incredible air staff that really connects with them – but also for music discovery, and that doesn’t necessarily just mean new music either. It means that they trust us to deal with our library in a way that we’re not just playing the same songs everybody else is playing; that we’re finding those gems that either bring back memories or are songs that maybe they’ve never heard before or they’ve only heard on the periphery.
How have you been getting your audience feedback?
Several ways. I’m running a campaign on-air where they can directly send me emails, and I’ve been getting a lot of emails. But also I’ve been having groups in; our Listener Advisory Panel, where we have meetings and ten, fifteen people sit around a table for an hour or so and talk about the station, their perceptions, their ideas. I want to hear ideas, things they like or things they don’t like. We’re talking a lot of stuff to stay connected to listeners.
So then, what I started out asking is if the priorities and basics changed as dramatically as a lot of people seem to think they have?
Not really. A good radio station is a good radio station. What I hear most is the deep appreciation they have for music discovery, whether it’s a new song or artist or something from our massive library that might have been overlooked. You expect KFOG to honor the good stuff; that’s the meaning of World Class Rock. The audience will always all be tempted by the promises of various online music services, but we believe the people here at KFOG can do better. We will do better by crafting our music by hand and by putting it all together in a meaningful and intelligent way.
The priority is and always has been the bottom line, and a radio station’s success is based on its profitability. Now there are several ways to reach profitability. One is to have really great ratings and be able to have a sales department that can turn those ratings into dollars. And the ratings might not be the most important thing, but it’s everybody working together with the goal of bringing dollars to the door. The economy is turning around, things are getting better. So I work with our GM, our sales manager, the salespeople, the air staff, and everybody within the building with one goal, and that is to make sure the station is profitable. If we are profitable and the company’s happy, everything is good.
The other part is I need to make sure we have a great product the listeners love, so that we can build a listener base so the sales department has great numbers to go out and sell and maximize their revenue source because they really are still depending on selling spots at this point. But I feel like our future is not going to necessarily be in just selling spots, but in a lot of the other things that we do on the side; our digital assets and all of the other things that we have as radio stations to create more revenue streams so that we’re not as dependent on just selling spots. But that’s the long range plan.
What excites you about the radio industry today?
I’m excited about what radio has been able to offer, and that is localization, connection to the local community, brands that people can trust in; the human aspect. With companies like Google or Pandora, you’re dealing mostly with technology. With radio stations you’re dealing with humans. You’re dealing with people who have feelings, like the people who are listening. We can get excited about a song. I don’t know how excited analytics and digital computers can get about a song. I don’t think they can. When I think back to the times I’ve listened to the radio and been excited about a new song or about something that was done on the radio, it was usually because the person who was presenting it was very excited about it and was enthusiastic. And so that is the one thing that radio has, that we will always have over all of the new competitors is that we are living, breathing human beings. The smart radio operators realize that’s the thing; that’s the golden ticket we have in our back pockets to connect with people emotionally and locally. Of all the things radio has done over the years so well, that is the advantage we have over all the other competitors that are going to come into our world.
[eQB Content by Jack Barton]
