Dave Foulk Internet Flyer

Recently, WGST Radio in Atlanta decided to let a couple of people go..Tom Hughes who had been with the station for 26 years, and Kim Peterson- a former colleague of mine at WSB Radio. Kim had been at WGST for more than a decade after leaving WSB. The WSB Old Timers is a loosely formed bunch of folks who worked at “The Voice Of The South” starting no later than 1980. Here is a message I posted with them:

I think Richard (Warner) is on to something in regards to WGST and the way things changed on-the-air. There were some not-so-sound program ideas- not the least of which was something called “Planet Radio”, or “People Planet”, or something similar. I can remember at the time talking to some people who worked there and weren’t sure what they were doing. The listeners were wondering, too.

At one point after Bob Ketchersid left WSB and before my eight month “post graduate course” as Aubrey Morris called it, I can remember a very interesting meeting with some consultants who had been hired by Cox Broadcasting. Mr. Schwartz was the CEO at the time. He was the kind of fellow who could make coffee nervous. I got the impression from my few conversations with him that his brain was definitely oriented to numbers and dollars and program ideas were not his forte’. The front conference room was ready, lights dimmed, and slides all prepared for the consultant’s presentation. Mr. Ellis was there, along with several other people who might be reading this right now. The upholstery hadn’t even warmed up when Mr. Schwartz, tapping a pencil on a yellow legal pad, told the presenters to get to the bottom line. They recommended WSB go to a News-Talk format, and stop playing any music at all. It would be a change to counter the ratings threat from the upstart news talker WGST. But the total change to a talk format for AM-750 would still be a long time to come.

That gap in time before WSB took the plunge into talk radio might have given WGST a head start in developing the format in Atlanta. In my opinion, some bad decisions on Pharr Road blew it for them, and now the station is a satellite repeater. I maintain the key to successful radio will be local, local, local. It takes more people and more money, and I imagine a lot less profit. But if broadcast companies are only concerned with profit margins, they should get into pharmaceuticals, or mortuaries. This might sound like one of those liberal crazy ideas, but stockholders should hold corporate feet to the fire to make sure their station clusters have sufficient local programming.

CEO’s should demand that each station manager and program director know not only what is happening inside their community bubble, but also a general idea of what is happening in the area. Too many broadcasters travel the country on the eighteen month plan. Six months to learn the streets….Six months to spiff up the resume’….Six months to find a new job. That means they are not stakeholders in the community they purportedly entertain and serve.

Music stations are tied to consultant-driven format ideas. You can tune across the FM dial for town to town, and hear the same songs, the same ideas for station positioning…it just all sounds the same. That sameness will eventually drive people to Sirius..seriously.

I would write more, but my fingers are getting hoarse from yelling at the computer screen.