WFLZ/Tampa Celebrating 20 Years!

By popular demand this week’s eQB includes the complete version of FMQB’s special tribute to “WFLZ/Tampa: Celebrating 20 Years!” The article is featured in our August issue. The resounding legacy of WFLZ is unparalleled. From its early, rebellious years as The Power Pig through the New Music Revolution and Hit Music Channel days, the station has spawned scores of successful radio pros who have formed a seamless fraternal bond that is unconditional. We narrate the story of WFLZ through the voices that have served the station well for 20 years. It’s a profoundly significant tale that recalls an era of radio that has simply vanished in time, but a spirit that marches on.

WFLZ The Power Pig:The Creation & Launch (circa 1988)
Back in the seventies and eighties, radio wars were plain and simple the single reason why many radio professionals would get out of bed in the morning. One of the prime motivators to prompt a radio battle was an incumbent station that had a serious ratings grip on a particular market, and as we all know it takes two to tango, so you also need an upstart. In Tampa Bay, Florida in the late eighties, one such scenario would play out to historic proportions.

CHR powerhouse WRBQ/Q105, an Edens Broadcasting property, literally owned the Tampa market. In the words of then Jacor Broadcasting VP of Programming and upstart leader Randy Michaels, “Q105 was virtually #1 across the board in every demo. It was both remarkable and unnatural. They were clearly the #1 biller in the market and one of the highest cash flow stations in the country.” So what’s an upstart to do?
In 1988, Jacor had acquired two Tampa stations, News/Talk AM WFLA and WFLZ (Z93) an Oldies FM. The wheels started turning in Randy Michaels head and it was deemed that a plan of attack was necessitated. Michaels recalls, “After we acquired the Tampa stations, we held a programmers meeting at the Surfside Holiday Inn in Clearwater, Florida. We flew in all of our PDs from every format because we wanted input from all the disciplines. We concluded after looking at the research and listening to the market that Q105, as successful it was, was entirely too broad. We studied them carefully. We knew they avoided Rhythmic records. We knew they were heavy into news, traffic and personality. We also knew they were leading in just about every demo category in the market. So, we decided they were ripe for attack. We devised a plan to attack them on the low-end and we thought they would probably go more Hot AC and protect their upper demo base.”
Now in every radio battle there are many strategic moves, from the inception of the plans to the hand-to-hand combat scenes that play out in the streets. Q105 was not going to sit idly by while the Jacor programming brain trust had all the fun planning the demise of their very station. Michaels continues, “Q105 PD Randy Kabrich somehow found out about our meeting and sent over a package of information for each of our PDs with a profile of the market, format opportunities, who’d attacked them and failed, and instead of doing their Top 40 format for the two or three days we were in town, they blatantly programmed to us. They did a half hour of Country, half hour of Urban and went through the formats and called our people out by name. It showed us how they were just in your face and also what we were up against.”
There were indeed other upstarts who would try to take on the mighty Q105 like Kix 96. When Kix 96 made a run at Q105 Michaels recounts, “They immediately said ‘hey there’s a new station, it’s Kix 96, and they really suck. Go ahead and check them out. We’re not going to do anything this morning, no bits, just go listen to them because it really sucks.’ Of course it was a brand new station and it really did suck. It was a brilliant move by Q105, but that story only served to fire us up more. We decided, alright, we’re taking these guys on!”
Game on…or maybe not. As we all know, every radio company has its chain of command and no matter how spirited a body of programmers is the buck always stops somewhere high up the food chain. In Jacor’s case it was COO Frank Wood. Jacor coincidently owned Eastman which served as the national rep firm for Edens Broadcasting, one of its largest clients and owner of Q105. Michaels comments, “Frank told us we couldn’t go Top 40 because Q105 was part of the meal ticket for Eastman. We were pissed! Frank told us to do another format, but we just tweaked around with the Oldies format because we knew deep inside that one day we would be able to execute our plan. So we proceeded to develop the Top 40 format and keep it on ice. Our corporate marketing director Mike Albl was responsible for coming up with the name Power Pig.  We would always build formats under silly names, most of them were dirty, but this one happened not to be. It was a joke name because the perceived war with Q105 was going to be a nasty one. Our position was when we take them on we’re going to let them know you don’t wrestle with a pig because when you do you both get muddy and the pig likes it. We wrote a bunch of liners, got our OINK OINK (sfx) in order and the format went into the computer as the Power Pig. One year after our meetings, in 1989, Eastman got cancelled by Edens and Frank Wood said, ‘okay bring it on.’”
The thought process was firing on all cylinders, so it was time to get serious about a launch and incorporate some perceptual research along the way. Michaels recounts, “I was at the NAB and there was a lot of debate about how we should execute the format and I told Frank we should just go down there and put it on with all the silly liners we created. Frank wasn’t entirely sold.” Enter perceptual research…“So Frank approaches some women at one of the cocktail parties and tells me he’s been trying out that Power Pig name and women just don’t like pigs. I told him I understood, so why don’t we call it the Rat, to which one of the woman said ‘women don’t like rats!’ Why not the mouse? That’s cute! She said no that won’t work! So I left the NAB with one thing in mind, Power Pig was definitely the way to go.”
With all systems go on the format, the name, the personality and the imaging, there was one missing piece, the mind games. Randy Michaels has long been known as one of the most creative and bold tacticians to grace the radio business. The mental part of the game plan was safely in his hands. Michaels continues, “It was on my flight to Tampa from the NAB that I devised the blackmail/ransom stunt and some of the tactical tricks we were to play on Q105. The plan was to go on the air and neuter all their tactics by admitting them. We were also going to use our two Tampa stations to help convey our propaganda to the listeners. Alan Gardner was doing mid-days on WFLA (our AM news/talker). I was his guest and the topic was ‘Why was Q105 #1 and what should be done about it?’ We simulcast the show on WFLZ as well. We proceeded to dissect the market. We told about the meeting we had. We talked about all the talent they had, their strengths and weaknesses, and how we would attack them. We laid out the whole plan on the air.”
In essence, the plan was to take Q105 out on the young end and initially concede the coveted 25-54 demo. In the words of Randy Michaels, “We knew they wouldn’t give the money demos up, so we could easily take the teens away and come up under them. We admitted this on the air and also admitted that the plan would probably not work because they are so powerful, but wouldn’t it be fun because they’re also so arrogant.”
The blackmail scam ensued. Michaels recalls, “We started calling the Q105 offices from the air, asking for (PD) Randy Kabrich and (GM) Mike Osterhaut, to make them an offer. On Monday we asked them to pay us $1 million in exchange for us not changing to Top 40, and of course they wouldn’t take the call. On Tuesday it was $2 million. Wednesday it was $3 million, and on Thursday we jumped it to $5 million. By Friday it was $10 million. On Wednesday we also fictitiously captured Jimmy Lee Crawford, one of the Q jocks, who we knew was on vacation, and held him for ransom. We had one of our guys do a Cleveland Wheeler voice (another Q jock) calling in and saying, ‘Okay we’ll pay the money, but only if you don’t give that redneck back!’  They really went quiet about all of this, because nobody had ever done this to them before.”
Michaels adds, “On the Friday of our blackmail week, we found out that Gary Eden (Q105 principal owner) was in Carmel at a golf outing, and at 6 a.m. Tampa time, which was 3 a.m. in Carmel, Marc Chase and I called him on the air, reached him in his hotel room and said we’re going to go Top 40 if you don’t pay us $10 million, to which he replied, ‘Well we’re looking forward to it boys, bring it on!’ It was now time to SCREW THE Q!”
There are only a precious few career experiences that have a profound impact on individuals, and in some cases, an entire industry. The Power Pig era was definitely one of those career altering experiences for many of the people we contacted for this article, and especially from the ones you’ll be reading from shortly. We were truly amazed over the energy in their voices and we could almost imagine the sparkle in their eyes when they related the anecdotes about the Power Pig days. Who better to sum up the legacy of the Power Pig than Randy Michaels?
”The Power Pig was a real good radio station. There may have been some better stations technically but there’s never been a better attack plan. It was as thorough as you can get. It was about attacking an opponent’s weakness by using its strength. We used the strength of Q105 to bury them. We used their arrogance. We used how broad they were. We used their commercial success. We attacked on all levels. One of the Jacor mantras was to plan calmly and attack emotionally. You let your competitor see the emotion; in fact you try to distract your competitor just like a magician waving his right hand when he’s doing a drop with his left. The Power Pig really spawned a lot of imitators in all formats. What the Power Pig did may have been nasty, but it also played right into what Q105 had done to other people, and made fun of it. It was more aggressive, but also lighthearted and very self deprecating. All we said that first year was ‘this can’t last; we’re just a small band of renegades having fun while it lasts!’

1989 – 1994…

Power 93 “The Power Pig Years”
The Power Pig years played a significant role in radio history and being a part of that ensemble group was extremely memorable to a man. “Like anything that becomes legendary you don’t realize it when you’re in the moment,” says longtime Power Pig PD BJ Harris. “I don’t think anyone thought we were making history at the time. But looking back on it, you realize you experienced something very special with some amazing talent and radio minds.” And Harris counts himself among the lucky ones. Prior to the Power Pig, he’d been fired and hired by two different companies when he heard the news of a Tampa station about to take on the legendary Q105. Fortunately, he knew PD Marc Chase who was heading up the Tampa project. Harris continues, “More than the radio station itself, were the people I had the chance to meet and the relationships that were formed, along with all the fun like firing paintball guns, painting buses, all the house paint, leaving old Power Pig cars on the side of the highway for listeners when they broke down and riding scooters in the hallways. Those memories were priceless.” Harris cites Marc Chase and Randy Michaels quite often in his recitation of those days, two names that surface instantly when speaking with any of the Power Pig alums.

Night Jock Bubba The Love Sponge recalls, “It was the most exciting time in my radio career. It’s what every aspiring radio jock wants to be a part of. And as all of us fellow Power Piggers look back, I’m sure each one of us misses those days. The Power Pig was something that has been done only a handful of times in this business. It was a radio station that had some remarkable talent assembled by the best programmers ever.” Bubba continues, “With the pussification and hub-and-spoke voice-tracking mentality of modern day radio, a management and programming team of Randy Michaels, Marc Chase, BJ Harris, Jeff Kapugi and others will never be assembled again. These men didn’t over-think and water down the product. We were told to go on-air and have fun and to be outrageous. They would fix it if we messed up.” Bubba expresses, “Man, I really miss those days, and every single person that ever walked through (or in some cases drove motorcycles through) the hallways of the Power Pig.”
So what do the Power Piggers recall most from the week the Power Pig signed on and the early stages of the format? “Pink spray paint…seriously, a lot of pink spray paint and an eruption from a radio audience that I’d never seen before.” exclaims PD Marc Chase. “It was truly amazing! We all knew things were out of control when we went to #1 in the market in our third weekly in-house audience report. Actually, we knew about it two days before when we got a copy of Q105’s in-house market audience report.”

BJ Harris wasn’t yet in the building due to a deal he had with Nationwide in Orlando but remembers getting a call from Chase telling him he needed to consider coming to Tampa and help out. “I was sitting in the parking lot of BJ105 in Orlando and listening to the launch of the Power Pig. I had goose bumps!” A month later Harris arrived at the Pig thanks to then Nationwide VP Guy Zapoleon. MD/Late night jock Jeff Kapugi was in the building when the Pig signed on and also remembers the week being filled with lots of pink spray paint. “The week leading up to the launch was filled with stunts on FLZ and offers to Q105 to pay a ransom for us not to switch,” remarks Kapugi. “THAT was entertainment!” Current Clear Channel SVP Tom Owens relates, “Marc Chase originally did an amazing job in creating a product that set new standards in the emphasis of personalities, colorful content, and competitive aggression.  Like any highly visible and successful innovation, The Power Pig rattled conventional thinking and reminded everyone that the only way to really know where the edges used to be is to push the envelope.” 

Randy Michaels was quoted in Pulse magazine in 1990 saying, “We went on the air with more produced elements than songs. The attempt was to use attitude drops to create a sense of theatre, a larger than life presence, a compelling reason to tune in beyond the music.” Chase has a vivid memory of the image/production concept. “Total carts in the music rack at launch: 46. Total number of promos and attitude drops: 217…and it didn’t stop there!” He says almost everyone contributed to the creative process. The goal was to take as long as possible to become an “abnormal radio station.” The Power Pig’s launch was all about the theater and the story lines. “We acted like the ultimate underdog who was not afraid to be a little naughty,” comments Chase. “The basic premise was we were insane to be taking on Q105. It was a suicide mission. How could this broke, low-rated radio station survive against the ‘Big Bad’ Q? We were certainly going to get our asses kicked by the lush, lavish and loaded Q105, a mega station with all the toys and advantages.” Chase continues, “All we had were a few homemade bumper stickers, shoe polish to write Power Pig with on car windshields, and billboards we climbed on in the middle of the night to spray paint The Power Pig on…oh yea and some pink, spray-painted old wrecks that were in such bad shape we kept the title in the glove box so when they broke down, you could have them.”

As with any CHR station, the music mix was an essential element of the Power Pig position. “Q105 was #1 12+, 18-34, 25-54 and top two or three 35-64,” recalls Chase. “They were taking everything the market gave it. Q105 was the news station in Tampa, the Oldies station, the AC, the HOT AC and the CHR. Its day-parting and music flow was pretty incredible. Q utilized a wide but conservative list 4am to 7pm mixed in with some ‘secret weapon’ day-parted oldies, and a pure oldies show every day at noon.” Chase says it was exceptionally broad as the entire market was chasing the money demos. “When the Power Pig focused on 18-34, we hit a very underserved audience musically, and the attitude was the icing on the cake. Today we’d call it Red Bull instead of Power Pig. Both would have a very similar impact on their consumers.” Jeff Kapugi agrees, “Q105 was all over the road fromThe Beatles to Paula Abdul. As a consumer I couldn’t even listen to them. It was horrible. Power Pig was very upbeat with Pop, Dance and Rock. It was amazing to see the first music test we got back and all the Rhythmic leaning stuff that Q105 was not playing was testing through the roof. We knew then we had a monster on our hands!”

As important as it was to play the right music, talent was also key to the Power Pig’s success. “At the launch, the Power Pig was the real star.” says Chase. “Initially, the jocks were actors in a demented radio theater. Over time, we began to focus on doing shows (not shifts – SHOWS), but it took a while. Talented people with memorable names were a key factor: Bubba The Love Sponge, Tim and Tom, Booger, Hawk & Marty, Dave ‘The Bat’ Mann, John ‘Rock-n-Roll’ Anthony, The Three Little Pigs, Fathead (BJ Harris’ air name pre-MJ & BJ), Dr. Don, Boner, Big Woody, Hardin Long, Gator McClusky, Jason Dixon(Q105’s Mason Dixon’s bastard son), Jack Harris and a cast of crazies made the station more personality-reliant than the ten in-a-row stations.

But no show had more personality, chemistry, fun and media attention than the MJ & BJ Morning Show. The two teamed up in 1994 by way of “a complete accident” as both MJ & BJ remember it. MJ flew in from West Palm Beach for his interview and while at a dinner MJ says to BJ, “We can work it out Monday on the air.” BJ’s response was “We? Who’s we? I’m hiring you…not a duo.” Then BJ agreed to do the show while they looked for a co-host. Six weeks into the search they both stopped looking and the rest was history. As for the media attention, “The MJ, BJ, OJ campaign did it!” relates BJ. All of their mug-shots were featured on billboards during the OJ Simpson ‘trial of the century.’ MJ says of the show’s mission, “My approach has always been just do great radio that grabs folks and forces them to listen. It compels them to listen day in and day out because they don’t want to miss something. And the mission for me has always been to have fun, and typically throughout my career I found the formula. If I find it interesting the audience is also interested so I’ve come up with a good barometer.”
In addition to talent and music it was the “mind games” and tactics the station employed that helped win the war. Chase believes, “Q105’s strengths became their weaknesses. The Power Pig tactics were an integral part of the strategy. Because of the competitive market matrix we were able to target our music female and the attitude male. Dance music and dick jokes…The Power Pig!” But make no mistake Chase was surprised how quickly success came. “We were preparing for a long drawn out war that would take years to win, not seventy-three days.”
Power Piggers have life long memories of the way it used to be from all the crazy moments like the infamous “Flip The Pig!” campaign. BJ tells us, “Q105 used to flip us off every time we encountered them. So Marc Chase came up with the idea of calling a ‘flip off’ a ‘flip of the pig,’ and we ran promos prompting listeners to flip them the pig every time you see Q105 or you see us in the streets.” Randy Michaels recalls, “I went out one night in one of our pink cars and I think everyone on the road was hanging out the window flipping the pig! Needless to say the middle finger got no rest in Tampa Bay in 1989.” Kapugi agreed, “Flipping the pig signified your love for the Power Pig and your dislike of Q105.” He also recalls the first Gasparilla parade they participated in. “Q105 got Belinda Carlisle to ride on their float and midway through the parade she was in tears and jumped off the float after being ‘flipped the pig’ so much during the event! It was classic!” Bubba also remembers the parades. “Unlike any other tight-ass corporate station, we had a pink school bus with a bar and an outhouse to pee in that we used for parades – mind you, the pee went right out on the street. We also had the soda machine loaded with Miller Lite in the vending area.”
As for the some of the most memorable moments from the Power Pig years, Marc Chase confirms the single most amazing thing he remembers was ‘flipping the pig.’ “It was amazing to drive down the street and have people honking their horns with big smiles while ‘flipping the pig.’ If you were trying to drive one of a dozen Q105 vehicles, ‘flipping the pig’ would make you want to hide.” Chase also remembers “When Gabe Hobbs was WFLA OM and went out of town for a few days, I sprayed his Nissan 300ZX pink and painted a big pig head on the hood in black. Gabe totally got the bit and thought it was funny. But when his mother came to visit and borrowed the car to run to the store she came home and said, ‘the people in Tampa are so rude! Thirty people just flipped me off on the way to the store and back and I was driving fine.’ I’ve done a lot of silly shit but that was one of the most fun things to watch.” BJ Harris remembers driving the Power Pig bus with Randy Michaels, Glen Beck (yes “the FoxNews” guy), Marc Chase, Tim Dukes, and Hawk Harrison, and ramming the toll booth on the causeway because the brakes went out!
“The Power Pig’s beginning was the perfect end to the 80’s, a decade of decadence,” comments Chase. “Personally, it was the start of another step in some truly amazing relationships. I can’t describe how much fun the day-to-day battles in the trenches were because the people I was fighting alongside with were fantastic. Bubba believes, “It was one of the very few stations that gave the listener a sense of a group or team. It was the underdog with a big mouth. It was like Deion Sanders when he would tell the other team ‘I’m going to take this ball to the end zone,’ and did. We told Tampa Bay we were going to kick Q105’s ass and we did. We had swagger before swagger was cool!” Kapugi sums it up like this, “Worst to first in seventy-three days, and the CHR station that everyone looked at…and still does.

”1995 – 2004…
933FLZ “The New Music Revolution”
The challenges of programming a station that had achieved so much early success began to mount. “The Power Pig had dug a hole of being rude and crude with a take no prisoner’s attitude with listeners and advertisers,” remembers BJ Harris. Randy Michaels relates, “The Power Pig itself was launched with such intensity and the war was so extreme that it felt to all of us that it had run its course. What cooked the Pig brand from a sales standpoint was the flipping the pig attitude that our listeners embraced. The downside was anytime we showed up to do a remote or personal appearance listeners would flip us off and clients would go nuts. So even though we were #1, there were a lot of big clients that wanted nothing to do with the station with the middle finger. We did the re-imaging to make it more saleable, but I don’t think the essence of the station changed much.”
With Marc Chase based in the corporate offices in Cincinnati, station PD BJ Harris needed to come up with an answer. “It needed an overhaul and the corporate office realized it,” says BJ. “Jacor did a research study (both perceptual and music) in the fall of 1994 and the results were so confusing that in our presentation meeting everybody just threw up their hands.” BJ said he looked at VP Tom Owens and said “I know what to do. I’m killing the Pig!” Owens asked what the plan was and BJ said “933FLZ.” Then following a dinner meeting with Owens a plan was finalized and “933FLZ” was born. Harris theorizes, “It was time to become a ‘real’ radio station for the decades and it’s proven that.”
                In 1995 the Power Pig changed to “933FLZ… The New Music Revolution” but much of the old Power Pig attitude would remain intact under the new moniker. “BJ Harris and ‘Booger’ (aka Jeff Kapugi) got some solid outside council from Tom Owens and did a great job of morphing WFLZ from dirty to dangerous,” says Chase. “You still never knew what to expect as it transformed. Only now, without the Power Pig’s rude, crude and socially unacceptable moniker, WFLZ had the opportunity to reinvent itself. It took a lot of courage but it’s a valuable lesson: don’t be so anchored in your past success that you cannot reinvent yourself.” Kapugi is quick to add, “The attitude was clearly still there. The station’s ratings had peaked and dropped and we had really niched ourselves as a Rhythmic station, and with all the Pop Alternative music out there that was doing well it just made sense.” 

Dom Theodore was also there during the transition from the Power Pig to 933FLZ, as APD/MD for Jeff Kapugi. Dom later became PD after 933FLZ was already a success in 1998. “The biggest challenge for me was trying to figure out how to outdo ourselves without breaking anything,” says Theodore. “At the same time, we had a new competitor sign on WLLD (Wild 98.7) and we were in the process of acquiring then-Modern AC WSSR (Star 95.7) as part of the Jacor-CC merger, so that changed the landscape quite a bit and our competitive focus changed from Star to Wild.”
In 2000 it was time for another change and the station was re-imaged as ‘The #1 Hit Music Channel’ to ignite another FLZ evolution. “Hello Sheryl Crow!” exclaims Marc Chase, “The Hit Music Channel packaging allowed FLZ to expand its mix and take advantage of the music that was hot and evolving in Tampa at the time.” Jeff Kapugi relates his return to Tampa from (KSLZ) St. Louis as a homecoming. “The challenge of the battle with WLLD was intriguing, as was working with MJ Kelli on a different level.” And as always, it was important to maintain that spirit that made Power Pig so successful during the nineties. “The building on Gandy will always have that spirit,” professes Kapugi. “There is a buzz that started in 1989 and still exists today.”
It was also the beginning of the MJ Morning Show. MJ says it was an adjustment but the show’s success continued. “After BJ left we maintained the same crew, all the support players, all the side players and everyone stepped up and did an even better job of developing the show.” Many believe it was MJ who helped FLZ get through the tough times as the station’s longest tenured employee. The MJ Morning Show is now syndicated into six markets. And when asked about the show’s most memorable moment MJ quickly responds, “9/11…that’s the day we did a thirteen hour morning show non-stop.”
Controversy was as much the norm for FLZ as it was for the Power Pig. “The daily ‘stir-up controversy’ meeting was always a packed house,” recalls Marc Chase of the Power Pig era. “What’s relevant to some is controversial to others. We stirred the pot every chance we had. In fact, everyone who wore the PD stripes at WFLZ knows how to stir up a little trouble on a regular basis.” Kapugi described it by saying, “With all the amazingly strong personalities on FLZ there was always something going on. It was a three ring circus by design, of course!”  Randy Michaels explains, “The Power Pig days were real theater of the mind and non-stop action. If it meant a little controversy, so be it. I always thought the right controversy was terrific, especially in the diary world. It would keep your station top of mind.”
Kapugi also defines FLZ as a lifestyle, “What we did, and the vibe and magic created, came from the team that worked there.” Much of the station’s success and longevity is credited to long time morning host MJ Kelli. He’s been a pillar for fifteen years at FLZ arriving in the final year of the Power Pig when he teamed with BJ Harris for six years. In 2000, the MJ Morning Showtook shape and has been on the air ever since. “One of the hardest working talents I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with,” says Kapugi. “When BJ left and I returned, MJ and I developed a very strong respect for one another and our relationship went beyond the fact that we worked together. On the air he needed to have a balance, which was created by others on the show. MJ is a very talented individual and he’ll always be successful at whatever he does because he has the drive and expects perfection.”
Dom Theodore remembers his time with FLZ as a special time. “I’ll always remember being in the big pink Power Pig bus during a parade and the bus no longer worked, so our promotions director Ron Shepard (Jomama Johnson) hired a local towing company to pull it in the parade. The tow truck was actually pink to match the bus. There was a hole in the floor of the bus and somebody decided they needed to take a leak, so they used the hole. Here we are in a pink bus behind a pink tow truck with this stream trailing behind us. A police officer happened to notice the stream and stopped BJ to let him know he thought we had a leak in our gas tank. BJ just smiled and told the officer ‘Thanks, I’ll look into that!’”
One can only imagine what it was like to be involved with one of the greatest Top 40 stations in the history of the format. “Amazing!” expresses Kapugi. “I got to be the only two-time PD of FLZ.” Theodore notes, “Our programming assistant Dennis ‘Big D’ Clark once said, ‘Domino, do you know what makes this place work? We’re all misfits…you, me and everyone here. We’re all misfits.’ That may describe it best. There was something special about the collection of people at that station during those years. We were a quirky, creative group that never took ourselves seriously and the atmosphere always had an irreverent renegade feel. The place had what I can only describe as a soul. The station was a living, breathing thing and we all had our little piece of it. It was a very special time with a special group of people.”

Longtime mixer turned MD Stan “The Man” Priest offers, “It’s a kind of dirty you can’t wash off! It was so much fun! Off the charts craziness! People would not believe most of the stories in the PC world we live in today. I wonder if the statutes of limitations are up yet. I only later learned the extent of the radio genius of Randy Michaels and Marc Chase. The education I was exposed to is so rare and unique, money couldn’t buy it.” APD Toby Knapp summed up his thoughts as, “Unreal. Surreal. Electric. There were mornings, driving to Gandy on the Crosstown from Harbour Island when I wondered if I was dreaming, tripping, drunk or some variation of all of the above. It’s the excitement of knowing you’re going to do what so many in radio could only dream about doing, and we did it every day and got paid for it. But it wasn’t about money. It was about something bigger.” There was no scientific method that truly made FLZ different from most stations around the country. It was entirely organic. “We didn’t over think it. If it felt right, we did it,” says Dom Theodore. “We had research, we had tools, but BJ Harris taught me something I still live by today. He said ‘your gut is right 90% of the time, and those are pretty good odds.’ We always ran the data through common sense filters. When everyone else was researching every detail of their station, we just did what sounded right to us and we weren’t afraid to take a risk and try new things. The emphasis was always on content and outdoing ourselves in-between the records.” Stan ‘The Man’ notes, “It was pure genius to deconstruct the usual business model for a radio station and unleash Animal House on steroids, with an attitude, a microphone and a transmitter.”

Toby Knapp injects, “You know all that bullshit they tell you to motivate you? Like ‘AFDI’, or ‘Protect the license and have fun,’ or ‘work hard and play harder,’ or ‘create excitement’ or ‘break eggs to make omelets’ or ‘the only rule is there are no rules?’ At FLZ all that stuff was real. Everywhere else, they’re just empty feel good words. We practiced what we preached. We didn’t worry about where the edge of the envelope was. We pushed it to find where it used to be. We were encouraged to blaze new trails. We were expected to be just a hair past the edge, a Paxel away from crazy, and we were rewarded for it.” Knapp continues, “It was (and is) called personality. FLZ had it. What was happening between the songs was just as compelling as the music itself. It was the total content package, a perfect balance between chaos and harmony.”
The Power Pig/FLZ legacy is indeed potent as described by Dom Theodore, “It may have been one of the last radio stations that made people want to do this for a living after listening to it. There are very few radio stations that have inspired people in the way the Power Pig and 933FLZ did. It reinvented itself and had success at a time when the CHR format was struggling nationally, then became a model for many of the newer CHR’s that sprung up later.”

2005 – Present …
933FLZ “Hit Music Channel”

The mid 2000s ushered in a new era in the evolution of FLZ as the station became simply known as the “Hit Music Channel.” It would be Kapugi’s last year at the Tampa compound as he accepted another programming opportunity within Clear Channel at an underperforming station in Washington DC. Kapugi said it was tough to leave but he had done all he could and was ready for his next challenge.

Kapugi’s MD Kane captained the ship for a short time before reuniting with his former PD in DC for mornings, but Kane also remained a fixture in Tampa hosting afternoon drive on FLZ. “For the brief time I was PD, my biggest challenge was trying to protect the sound of the station from the challenges of the radio environment,” says Kane. “You have to make money. You have to perform more with less. You need to get the corporate priorities on the air. But how do you make it fit the station and not disappoint the previous PDs? I don’t know if the others felt this way, but you wanted to make that station huge not just for you and your staff, but for the guys before you that programmed it. Like when your dad gives you the keys to the car for the first time.”

Enter Tommy Chuck who had been at sister CHR WXXL/Orlando for only nine months when he got the call from [SVP/Programming] Marc Chase, [OM] Doug Hamand and [GM] Dan Dilorettooffering him the opportunity of a lifetime. And make no mistake Chuck was very aware of the history of FLZ and its Power Pig days before taking the job. “It’s a radio station I’d grown up following and listening to,” he says. “And even today almost three years in, there’s really not a day that goes by that I don’t drive to work going ‘holy crap’ I can’t believe I’m in charge of this radio station.” Chuck says he keeps some things scattered around the office to visually remind him of the station’s roots including a Power 93 (Power Pig) bumper sticker and a ‘Vote Power Pig For Governor’ button. He says there’s a picture above his door of the station’s seventh birthday party where it has the whole staff around a big birthday cake. We use these kinds of things to keep us in check and remind us of the history and why we’re all blessed for being a part of.”
It was Marc Chase, SVP/Programming at the time, who became the best resource in helping Chuck fully understand what FLZ meant to Tampa. There was also another group of alums and ongoing members of the fraternity serving the mentorship process. Chuck offers, “People like Jomama Johnson, MJ and Hurricane and Fester. Kane has been a part of the station for ten years or more. Toby Knapp is somebody who still means a lot to FLZ…Gabe Hobbs, Dom Theodore and Jeff Kapugi. The one thing that’s great about FLZ is that you’re always part of it. It gets in your blood and never leaves you. It’s not just another radio station on your resume. For anybody that’s part of it in any capacity for any length of time, that’s what sets the special stations apart. Once you’re in, you’re family.”
Eve, ryone knows the history of the Power Pig years, and even if you didn’t live it, chances are you discovered it from a programmer, jock, consultant or someone who had audio of those special days. The legacy serves as an inspiration to continue to create great radio. Chuck relates, “In order to be a part of FLZ, you have to have that internally. I look for that in people I hire, and I think they looked for that in me when they hired me. Leaders are the ones who make the path even though sometimes the road is bumpy. I’d rather be making the path than following one.” He continues, “One of the things you can point to in the FLZ era today is that we’re branching out into different distribution platforms and reaching the audience in a bunch of different ways, not just on the FM dial. We’re not just creating great radio for Tampa, but also the world. We’ve got a lot of people listening now on iheart radio. They listen online. There’s not a radio station like this anywhere else. The playlist is somewhat similar to a typical Top 40, but it’s the ingredients that go into the total package, from the jocks to the imaging, to the spice songs we’ll play that no one else plays.”
Chuck is also aware of the role controversy has played in FLZ’s history as it relates to media attention and ratings. “I don’t know that we ever sit around and have brainstorming meetings and decide how we’re going to raise hell. It just kind of happens. When you have an air staff of big personalities in every single day part certainly there are guidelines we have, but I try to keep the rules as wide open as possible to allow for their creativity.” Chuck adds, “I want to hire very creative and entertaining personalities. I’d rather reel them in than push them out, or push them to do something. When you have that kind of approach then sometimes controversy happens. We always say we want to be edgy and rebellious, but we never want to be vulgar or dirty, that’s not what the FLZ of today needs to be.” Chuck believes FLZ has continued the tradition well and it’s what links the FLZ of today to the Power Pig of the past. He cites, “The Britney Spears billboards, and the crazy bits that MJ still does, and the Obama 93 we did on Election Day, it’s those quick, tactical punches of edginess that remind people of what FLZ traditionally has always been.”
Chuck arrived at a successful radio station but he also needed to put his signature on FLZ. “I always say that I didn’t build it. I’m just trying not to screw it up,” he quips. “There have been a lot of on-air personality changes in the past two and a half years. We’ve evolved online and have taken that to a whole new level.” In addition to being the PD of FLZ, Chuck also oversees all the web sites in Tampa. “Whether it was Twitter, FaceBook or MySpace, we were really ahead of the curve on all those things. TheMJ Morning Show now has its own personality channel. We’ve also completely re-imaged the whole station with a new female voice talent, Melanie Sykes. Just the sound she brings and with the way it’s produced, sounds different, but also retains the attributes of what FLZ is.”
Times have changed as has ownership, but the aura of excitement is still in the building as it was in years past. “Absolutely!” proclaims Chuck. “To be honest with you, that’s my proudest accomplishment because I look around the radio industry and I see people stressed out every day. They just don’t love their job anymore and the radio station doesn’t mean that much to them and what we’ve been able to continue at FLZ is just a passion for the radio station. Even when all the reductions in force were going on and budget cuts happened we huddled and talked about the possibility of being affected by it, but we did it together as a team.”
FLZ still does a lot of unique things to create excitement in the market. The biggest thing recently that generated international news was the Hannah Monstrosity event. Chuck reports, “We built a 13 foot Hannah Montana statue. People touched it and basically lived with it for seven days until one person remained with one hand on the statue for Hannah Montana tickets and passes. There was coverage on every local news station for a week.” Chuck knows stations do similar events but the one thing that differentiates FLZ is that it doesn’t stop there. “So now after the promotion was over we had this 13 foot statue and we had to figure out what to do with it. Throwing it away or giving it away is predictable. So we decided we were going to drop a city bus from a crane on top of it.” Chuck continues, “Some of the craziest things about being the PD of FLZ is I have these personalities that come in and say ‘Hey, I want to drop a city bus from a crane on this 13 foot statue of Hannah Montana.’ It’s my job to lead the team to see how the hell we’re going to get that done, because not getting it done is not an option.” Talk about pressure for a young PD, “It’s not just the history of living up to the Power Pig, it’s living up to what we did last week,” says Chuck. “And so often we don’t do stuff because we don’t feel like we top ourselves.”
We often hear about the people that built Power Pig back in the day, but there are a few that deserve credit making FLZ what it is today. “BJ Harris, Dom Theodore and Jeff Kapugi as far as the evolution of 933FLZ,” says Chuck without hesitation. “Those three guys are the architects of it. But, that’s the general sound and the name of the radio station. Then there’s the current air staff who breathe life into it every day. It’s led by MJ, Hurricane, Fester, Froggy, Meredith and Kane, who even though he’s doing mornings live in DC is still as much a part of this station as ever in afternoons. Ratboy & Staypuff are carrying on the great traditions of FLZ night shows. Then in mid-days it’s Katie Sommers, and the star power of Ryan Seacrest, as well as our Promotions Director Kim Cusmano.”
Tom Owens recites, “Beyond remaining our leading Tampa performer and one of our best CHRs nationally, WFLZ has a special place with all of us who recall the excitement and immediate success of its launch.”  Tommy Chuck concludes, “I hope the legacy is that FLZ is always here. No matter how much distribution platforms change, and time moves on with ownership, management and air personality changes, 933FLZ will always be bigger than all of us. It’s the ‘IT’ station. Different and cool. We’re not LA or New York, but a lot of people say we’re one of the three biggest Top 40 stations in America. New York, LA and FLZ! That’s humbling and I hope we can continue to be successful for many years to come.”

** QB Content by Fred Deane & Bob Burke **