Brad Holtz took over the PD chair at heritage Triple A WTTS/Indianapolis ten years ago as very young radio enthusiast, developing into one of Triple A’s leading programmers, bringing ’TTS its period of greatest success. Holtz tells FMQB how he has grown professionally while the industry changed at lightning speed
Brad Holtz
By Jack Barton
When Brad Holtz took over the PD chair at heritage Triple A WTTS/Indianapolis ten years ago, he was a very young radio enthusiast, who had never been so much as a Music Director, yet had impressed the local ownership Sarkes Tarzian’s brain trust so much they entrusted him with directing the outlet. Over the last decade, Holtz has developed into one of the format’s leading programmers, bringing ’TTS its period of greatest success – including a reputation as one of the premier call letters in the world of social media – as well as taking over direction of the company’s News/Talk outlet, housed in the same facility with ’TTS. How has Holtz grown professionally while the industry changed at lightning speed? Read on and find out.
It’s now over a decade that you’ve been programming ‘TTS. How has your perspective on radio changed?
I still get passionate about it, I still love the medium, but now I view content with such a sharper lens. People are busier than ever, there are more choices than ever and the listeners’ BS detector is so much higher than it was ten years ago. So the content we prepare or put on the air or our websites or on social media really must be meaningful, attention-getting and relevant. Unfortunately, the resources and time are more limited, but the need to really have great, great, content has never been more important, given the competitive landscape that’s changed so much. In terms of perspective, I now have to think about things that weren’t even around ten years ago, or even five years ago.
Such as?
Besides the other radio stations, satellite radio was just taking off eleven-and-a-half years ago, and then social media erupted withTwitter, Spotify, Pandora and the things like that. Just the landscape of how we get our content out and what we put our content against, it’s completely changed.
You mentioned Spotify and Pandora, which are even more niched than Triple A. How do you relate to your listeners differently to create more value for them?
It’s interesting. I was talking about that with (MD) Laura (Duncan) the other day. Laura runs all of our social media and she does a beautiful, beautiful job at it. We try to reflect what listeners are talking about, what they’re thinking about, and what is driving their passions at the moment, in as many places as you can where you can make the biggest, most meaningful impact. With communication, there are so many things like Tumbler, Pinterest, Foursquare and Instagram, that – with limited resources – you’ve got to pick and choose where you’re going to make impacts. A good example here would be the snow storm we had this week. We had more ways we could connect with our audiences in this big, big, blizzard event, which is a huge event here.
We also had a major Colts victory here on Saturday night, which is one of the biggest turn-arounds in playoff history and something that captivated the collective interest of our community.
We have more ways now to reach people and ignite their passions over the radio, our streams, our apps, our emails, and also something on Facebook or something on Twitter. If you can engage people and spark some passion, we connect in a way a non-local outlet can’t. This is a very interesting example: this blizzard comes ripping through Indianapolis over the weekend, and Laura posted this cute comic she found on our station’s Facebook page. It was just a cute little comic, but it’s been shared 118,929 times; it went viral and it started through us. It has, according to Facebook, been organically seen by 6,668,000 people. So we took some content we thought people might be passionate about and it went viral. Never in this equation was our transmitter involved, nor was PPM involved and music wasn’t involved, it was all something that came from our brand, and our people, and their passions igniting this viral wonder. That’s something we never would have even considered or even dreamt of seven or eight years ago.
To go back to Pandora and Spotify, these are outlets where people can tailor to their specific tastes, without having to wade through things that are new or different. How do you maintain your position as a vehicle to deliver music when competing with them?
Well, you think about the X’s and O’s that made your brand successful. You go back to the basic cornerstones; play the best music and play it a lot. You realize that the reason they came to your radio station in the beginning – and for us it’s over 22 years – was a variety of music, musical discovery and the luxury of having a consistent, stable air staff. We have voices on our station that people have grown accustomed to and trust.
Regarding a heritage air staff, that can be a double-edged sword when you’re target demo is staying the same, and you’re trying to keep people from aging out of it while trying to relate to younger people coming into it. How do you keep the staff fresh and relevant for all your audience segments?
Well, it certainly presents challenges because you have to encourage a level of curiosity with your staff, and I want to give a lot of credit to Laura. I put her in charge of social media and she will teach me and (morning host) Paul Mendenhall and the part-time weekend staff how that works. The first thing you have to do is try to live the lifestyle technologically the same as the people that are coming up in the demo. You’ve got to stick with it. If you’re on the air, you need to have a fan Facebook page or a Twitter account and you should keep up with it and things like that. I think it starts right there.
How about on the air?
It’s just a matter of being relevant. There are two different issues here, musical issues and presentation issues. As new people discover WTTS, we present the music in the manner in which we’ve always presented it: a relatable down-to-earth and friendly manner.
Communicating information is what drives passions, be it the music, the blizzard, or the Colts. If we do it in an authentic, genuine way, we’re connecting with them. And If you have the added bonus of doing it in multiple ways and not just what you say on the radio, you’re going to connect with them.
In the same vein, last year you were on a Boulder panel that coined a new acronym, TSR, for Time Spent Relating. What does that mean to WTTS?
Well, I love the acronym, because everything I’ve talked about so far is about relating. It’s about relating over the air. It’s about relating in emails, or on Facebook, or on the website. It’s just doing little things. I write the station email every week and with the limited words I use, I’m relating to their lifestyle and their activities.
At WTTS we try to think of everything as a listener and weed out what would be seen as BS and focus on what matters to them most. That starts with having a very engaged promotional mission, and meeting and studying folks, researching the audience, going out to concerts with these folks and learning their lifestyle. We’ve done a good job at WTTS of really understanding who listens to this radio station.
And who is that?
An adult who is engaged within the community and cares about his/her neighbors and cares about the town and loves music. And they trust this radio station to present them with not only the music they grew up with, but also things they haven’t heard yet that they’ll love. We try to find as many ways as possible to engage them in a dialogue about the radio station, about the community, and the more information we get back from them helps us become a better radio station for this audience.
You’re in a PPM market, yet Sarkes-Tarzian has opted out of the program. What tools do you use to measure success and sell the station?
Well, there are certainly challenges, but we’ve been lucky to have a 22-year heritage format, heritage call letters, and consistent management of the product, so there’s a built-in trust within the buying community. Second, we have a strong sales staff that really “gets it.” We also have so many metrics at our fingertips that we can demonstrate to clients or potential clients, with pinpoint accuracy, the database, the streaming numbers, and the social media activity. As a local business owner, you can go to a WTTS event, see the audience you’re going to reach, engage with them, put a schedule on the air and move product. We see it again, again and again, and it works.
What is the future of traditional broadcast radio?
It will remain successful and the cream will rise to the top. By being local and serving the community we’ve built trust, allowing new products that we introduce with our calls on it to have an advantage just because they’re part of us as a trusted brand.
[eQB Content By Jack Barton]
