Back in 2012, when Chuck Sapienza was VP of Programming for ESPN 980 in Washington, D.C., a major weather event forced him to have to let his on-air team leave the building. With nobody there to do a show and only one producer willing to stay, Sapienza did the show himself. In his own words, Sapienza is not an on-air host, rather an Executive Producer and programmer, however, what he talked about that day changed his relationship with his listeners. The topic that caught on was one he was very familiar with – the programming of the radio station, so he did an ‘Ask the PD’ show and it hit.
Since then, a couple of times per year, whether it was in D.C. or now in his current role as Brand Manager for 105.7 The Fan in Baltimore, he will interact with the audience and get their feedback on the station. He did another episode of ‘Ask the PD’ this week as he hosted the station’s midday show, Vinny & Haynie.
When he did the first show back in D.C. he said, “I got a lot of cool feedback and a lot of cool response. It let the listeners behind the curtain, so I ended up doing it twice a year.”
Sapienza said he would typically do the show when someone had a vacation or otherwise needed a fill-in. He did schedule a show in the evening when he arrived in Baltimore to introduce himself to the market.
In total, between on-air shows and ones on Facebook, Sapienza has done this 16-18 times between the two markets. Moving forward he anticipates always doing it on-air. “I feel like you’re touching the listener a little bit more and making them feel more a part of the radio station. It’s just a cool way to get them asking questions.”
Of course, listeners can sometimes get carried away with their critiques or flat-out hatred of certain hosts, but Sapienza says he has developed a style for when it becomes a “bitch session.”
“I don’t get into it with the listeners, I don’t argue with them,” he said. “If they don’t like something its ok. I get it. Not every show is going to be liked by everybody. I explain to them if every show was the same, we would have a very loyal listenership to a very small percentage of people. I want our shows to be different, which means they’re not going to all be for you.”
Sapienza has even created an email address “just for the listeners” and he will reply to social media posts where listeners ask questions, so it is clearly important to him to hear from the people his hosts try and inform and entertain on a daily basis.
At a recent station event celebrating their 15th anniversary, Sapienza was surprised how many listeners asked him when he would be doing the next ‘Ask the PD.’ “As a Program Director your job is to make the station better, me on the air doesn’t make the station better…but I know we are going to get complaints and have people who have an agenda or want to get on a soap box. But the complaints are only part of it.”
Sapienza says he also likes having some time to explain things like when a team might move their play-by-play rights to another company or about other decisions that have to be made. “I try to explain the difference between the business side of radio and the programming side, that it’s a big difference,” he said.
The show Sapienza hosted this week was not only in a prime daytime slot, but it was also a four-hour shift. He said the phones rang throughout the entire show, 40 or more emails came in as well as several posts with questions on social media.
“The response always blows me away,” he said. “There is a passion for the radio station that is overwhelming, we are blessed because of that. I said it on the air, we’re going to continue to strive to get better and the only way to do that is to talk to the listeners and find out what they want. Invariably it’s their radio station, it doesn’t matter what I want…I’d like to know what they want and if I can do it, I can do it.”
